How Love Heals
by M1zuk1.Kyoto
Summary: Hello, fellow readers! I'm in collaboration with Dme1994 and created a story that coincides with hers: "Undying Love". It follows the OC character Mizuki and her journey from becoming a small village medical nin to being thrown in a war with no proper training. Follow her as she deals with the horrors of war and a possibly a love connection. I DO NOT OWN NARUTO.
1. Chapter 1

_****Authors note** **_

_**Hello everyone! My character is Mizuki Kyoto. In relation to the war, this story takes place right before the fourth shinobi war. In relation to Dme1994's story, Undying love, this story starts at her chapter 19. **_

_**Enjoy! **_

_**I do not own naruto! **_

**Chapter 1**

"I am so close." I say to myself as I pack my bag. "Almost two miles till I reach the Hidden Leaf."

I finish putting all my medical supplies into my bag and walk to the bathroom. I wash my face, ruffle up my short brown hair, change into my black pants and light brown shirt.

"I hope the Hokage allows me to join." I think to myself as I put on my sandals and my jacket. "Whelp, only one way to find out." I grab my bag and head out the front door.

I walk down the stairs to the main desk of the inn and the lady looks up from her book.

"Leaving already?"

"Yes, ma'am. Thank you so much for giving me the last room."

"No worries." She takes the key from me. "We've been so busy because of the war and ninja coming in and out of the town. I am thrilled we had a room for you."

"Thank you again and please stay safe." I bow and turn to leave

I walk out the inn. Everyone is enjoying the beautiful weather – the elderly are taking strolls, children running around laughing and playing. I hear the clanking of metal in the distance. It is a wonderful, peaceful day that it makes you forget what is about to come. I look down and see a ball rolling towards me.

"Hey lady!" a little boy yells out. "Can you please pass the ball!"

I nod and kick the ball over. He quickly runs and catches the ball.

"Thank you!" He smiles.

"No problem little one!" I wave.

I turn and start walking to leave the village and I pass this cute little tea parlor. Suddenly there is a huge explosion coming from behind me. I look back and see one of the buildings is completely gone. I hear screaming and crying coming from all directions. I begin to run toward the explosion, seeing if I can help anyone. There is smoke and dust everywhere.

Then I see them. Six men holding various weapons. One of them throws a kunai with a paper bomb attached to a nearby building. The building blows up causing debris to fly everywhere.

"Get out of the way, you stupid kid," one of them says as he kicks the small child I saw earlier.

"He said move!" another one says "Or we'll give you a reason to run."

The kid looks up in shock, unable to move, paralized in his spot. The bandit pulls out a paper bomb kunai and throws it in the direction of the kid. I run as fast as I can and grab the kid and roll out of the way of the bomb. I am holding him tightly in my arms and hear him whimpering slightly as the bomb blows up a couple of yards behind me.

"Why are you doing this?! You've hurt so many people!" I yell at them "Look at this child's condition! Have you no heart?"

"You've got a big mouth lady," the leader says to me. "It's going to cost you your life!"

He raises his sword, ready to strike me and this kid.

"It's going to be okay," I whisper to the little boy, holding onto him tightly and feeling him hold me, terrified. "I got you."

I know I won't be able to escape from his strike, but I still have to give this little boy hope. I brace myself for the attack.

No attack comes. I look up and to my surprise, there is a lady blocking his attack with her katana. There is something familiar about her. I look at the bandit and I can see the man is pissed.

"What the hell are you doing, Lady?!" He asks in frustration. "Mind your business before you have your head cut off."

The woman quickly maneuvers her sword, knocking his to the ground and kicks him straight in his stomach, sending him flying back to the rest of his men. They catch him and look back at her in anger.

"Get to safety." she says to me, still in a defensive stance. "Attend to the wounded; I'll take it from here."

I just sit there staring at her in disbelief at what is happening.

"Don't worry about a thing, Mizuki; I'll take care of these guys. Please attend to the child and the others who are wounded."

"De-... Denizu?" I whisper in disbelief.

I quickly snap out of it, pick up the small boy and run off to safety. Once I get a good distance away, I carefully place the boy down on the ground. He winces in pain.

"Hey bud. Its okay," I comfort him. "What's your name?"

"Daichi." He says quietly, still very scared and breathing heavily.

"I got you Daichi. I'm Mizuki. I'm going to make sure you'll be alright."

I look back toward where Denizu is fighting the bandits and see she is in some type of pain. I check the boy over.

'Good. He only has bruising. It could have been a lot worse,' I think as I use my mystical palm technique for some of his injuries.

While I'm doing this, he falls unconscious due to the shock. I take off my bag, pull out a bandage, and begin to bandage one of his arms. I feel a hand on my shoulder.

"Mizuki, are you all right?" The woman who fought off the bandits asks.

"Denizu…" I say with a relief as she kneels next to me.

"Is he going to be alright?"

"Yes, he will be. Thankfully he has just a bruised arm and leg."

I let some medical figures take him away when I finish wrapping him up.

"How are you?" I ask Denizu. "I saw that you were facing some pain."

"No. No, I'm perfectly fine," she quickly says. "What are you doing in this village?"

"I was on my way to the Leaf. I heard of the war and wanted to aid you in anyway possible."

"I'm on a mission and am going back now. You can come along."

"That sounds like a good idea," I smile.

Before we set off to leave the village, Denizu checks in with the authorities to make sure they can handle the bandits. Once it was clear that they could, we set off to the Leaf. She also introduced me to Pakkun who is a miniature pug and a ninken.

"So you're saying you left your home in order to assist the people of the Leaf?" Denizu asks me as she fixes her katana.

"Yes, as soon as I heard that your village was in danger, I had decided to travel there to assist in anyway."

"How exactly do you plan on helping the Leaf?" Pakkun asks

"I specialize in the medical field." I say to him. "I'm a medical- nin with over ten years of experience, but not a part of any one village."

"Mizuki is the one who found me injured and took me years ago." Denizu says to Pakkun. "I owe her quite a lot for doing that."

"It seems that we're on the same terms since you saved me from those bandits earlier," I say with a joking smile.

"Now I know that Kakashi doesn't have to worry about you," Pakkun jokes.

"Kakashi? Who's Kakashi?" I ask with a questioning look. "That name sounds familiar…"

"You'll see soon enough," Denizu says with a sweat drop while rubbing the back of her neck.

We finally reached the village gates. They are open with people loading wagons full of supplies that are ready to head out.

"So this is all for the war?" I ask while observing the scene.

"Yes, and there's a lot more to prepare than just this," Denizu replies.

We continue to head inside the village, heading towards the Hokage office. I'm in awe as I look at all the buildings that are recovering. All the ninja moving out and about. There is not much laughter here. Everyone is working. The old and the young and all inbetween. As we get to the Hokage's office I look up towards the great wall with all the previous Hokages faces. We walk into the building and into the office.

"Lady Tsunade, I have arrived from my mission with the intel," Denizu says.

"Ah, Denizu, I was hoping you would arrive soon," Lady Tsunade walks over to Denizu from her desk.

"Here's a map that illustrates a route our enemy has been taking for some time now," Denizu opens the scroll and shows it to her. "I've confirmed from the contact that it's the Akatsuki who have passed through here."

"This is very good news…" Lady Tsunade examines the map. "Thank you for retrieving this intel, Denizu. It was essential for us to have."

Lady Tsunade then looks at me with a surprised look.

"And you are?" She asks.

"My name is Mizuki Kyoto," I say nervously. "I'm here to aid the Leaf village in any way possible for the war."

"Mizuki is a close friend of mine," Denizu says "I ran into her in the village where I retrieved the intel. She was on her way here so I figured I'd bring her back with me."

"Well, how do you wish to help us?" Tsunade asks me.

"I'm a medical-nin with over ten years of experience," I say with confidence.

"I'm a former patient of hers from years ago," Denizu says. "I assure you that Mizuki is very skilled in her area, and will be an excellent addition on our medical team."

Lady Tsunade looks at Denizu and is thinking about her reasoning. She then smiles at us.

"Welcome to the Leaf village," Tsunade says. "We appreciate your want to help us here at a time of crisis."

"Thank you so much, Lady Tsunade!" I say with a big smile and bow. "I'm more than happy to assist you and the village."

"I'll leave you to help her feel at home, Denizu," Tsunade says with a smile.

"Yes, Lady Tsunade," Denizu bows.

With that, we head out of the office and into the village.

"I'm so happy that I'm a part of your village, Denizu," I say with a big smile.

"I am too! It's been a while since we last saw each other."

"You're back," some one says from behind us.

We turn around and I see a tall man with spiky silver hair. He has headband covering one eye and a mask covering his face.

"Kakashi…" Denizu smiles.

"How was the mission?" Kakashi says while standing in front of Denizu.

"I ran into some trouble, but nothing I couldn't handle."

"Do you mind explaining to me?" Kakashi aks with a worried tone. "Pakkun?"

"I'll leave that for Denizu to explain." Pukkun says before disappearing in a puff of smoke.

Kakashi then turns towards Denizu with a questioning look as she scratches her neck nervously.

'Kakashi..Kakashi…I know this name but who is he?' I think to myself. "Are you Denzu's longtime lover?" I ask abruptly.

Kakashi looks at me with a surprised expression.

"Kakashi Hatake. I remember Denizu talking an awful lot about you."

"I'm sorry, But who are you to Denizu?" He asks me

"Oh! I'm terribly sorry!" I'm embarrassed as I hold my hand out to him. "I'm Mizuki Kyoto, a close friend of Denizu."

"Nice to meet you," he shakes my hand.

"Do you guys mind if we discuss this over coffee at my place with Kurenai?" Denizu suggests.

It's late in the evening and we are sitting in Kurenai's kitchen. Denizu just finished explaining how her and I met up in a small village while on one of her missions. Kakashi seemed weary while hearing about Denizu having to fight the six bandits.

"So you took care of Denizu after she had lost control of her curse seal?" Kurenai asks me before she sips on her coffee.

"Yes, she had explained to me who Orochimaru was and how she came to be in that seriously injured state that night," I answer her. "It's been quite a number of months since Denizu left from where I lived to be here in the Leaf. As soon as she heard of the future attack by the Akatsuki on the Leaf, she wanted to leave as soon as possible to warn the Hokage."

"She gave us a lot of trouble that day, by the way," Kakashi glances at me, causing Denizu to smile.

"Unfortunately, the village wasn't able to prepare for the invasion in time," Kurenai says. "It was completely destroyed by an Akatsuki member, causing many lives to be lost. That is until our Naruto was able to speak with the Akatsuki member and managed to bring everyone back to life with a powerful jutsu."

"Wow, this Naruto you speak of must be a very skillful ninja," I say with surprise

"Naruto Uzumaki is one of my students," Kakashi says. "I've been his sensei since he was about twelve; I've watched him grow into a very strong ninja of sixteen."

"A sixteen year old stopped the enemy who destroyed this village?" I'm amazed.

"He's also Denizu's student," Kakashi adds. "She was recently assigned to my original team as their new sensei alongside me."

"Really, Denizu?"

"Yeah. I see Naruto not only as my student, but like a son," she says with a smile. "All three of my students are close to me, but Naruto is the one who I closely share a connection with."

"Well, I'm glad you had taken care of this knuckle head of mine for so long," Kurenai hits the top of Denizu's head causing her to tear up and pout. "She hadn't shown up for ten years and now she still continues to worry me!"

"No need to be so harsh…" Denizu mutters.

"Say, Mizuki, do you have a place where you can stay?" Kurenai asks

I'm surprised by this and rub the back of my neck.

"Ummm… I seem to have forgotten that little detail," I smile with a sweat drop.

"You're more than welcome to stay at one of my closest friend's house," Kakashi says. "He's currently on a long mission and isn't going to return for a long while."

"You're talking about Gai's place, aren't you?" Denizu asks him.

"I'm sure he won't mind."

"How are you going to get in?"  
"I'm like a personal housekeeper who stops by every now and then to keep his house tidy and his pet turtles well fed."

"By every now and then do you mean rarely ever?"

"You know me very well, don't you?" he smiles at Denizu.

Kurenai burst out with a chuckle at their behavior and I giggle.

"All right, you love birds. It's late and Mizuki needs to get a place to stay," Kurenai says. "I would let you stay here, but I don't have much room in this apartment."

"Don't worry, please, it's quite alright," I say with a smile. "It's completely understandable considering your state."

Kurenai smiles at me as she puts her hand on her enlarged belly.

"You can be Gai's temporary housekeeper as an exchange of living in his extra bedroom," Kakashi tells me. "He really needs to find someone else who will be there daily to feed his turtles."

"I'd be more than happy to take that deal," I say.

"Well, it's settled then," Denizu stands up. "Mizuki will be staying at Gai's!"

"You and Kakashi had better escort her now; it's awfully late and after what she's been through today with those bandits, I'm sure she wants to rest."

"Oh, thank you, Kurenai," I say with a big smile.

"Let's head out then," Kakashi says

"I'll be back, Kurenai!" Denizu follows me and Kakashi out of the apartment.

"Don't kidnap her, Kakashi! Tell me when you want to so I know not to expect her back!" Kurenai jokes.

Kakashi chuckles as he waves goodbye to her.

"So how does it feel to be back together?" I ask breaking the silence as we exit the apartment building.

"Absolutely wonderful," Kakashi answers by taking a hold of Denizu's hand.

"Couldn't have said it better myself," Denizu smiles.

"You both really are perfect for each other," I say to them. "I can see right away that just being together you both are extremely happy and nothing else matters."

"Well, I have you to thank for taking care of her when I wasn't there," Kakashi says to me. "Who knows where she could have ended up?"

After a couple minutes of walking we finally end up at Gai's place.

"Well here's Gai's apartment," Kakashi unlocks and opens the door and holds it open for us. "I hope you'll be fine here," he says as he turns on the living room light.

"Oh, of course, it's perfectly fine!" I settle my bag down on the floor. "It's nice! You can tell no one has really been here for a while, but I'll be able to change that with a few sweeps."

"I'm sure Gai will appreciate that," Denizu smiles.

"Well, everything seems to be fine and you can find your way around easily," Kakashi looks around the apartment and then opens the door of a room. "This is where you'll be sleeping."

"Thank you, Kakashi," I say with a slight bow. "I'm looking forward to meeting your friend Gai so I can personally thank him as well."

"I'm sure he'll be surprised to find you here, but trust me, he won't mind at all," Kakashi says with a friendly smile.

With that, I yawn and stretch out my arms.

"We'll leave and let you rest now, Mizuki," Denizu says. "You've had a long day."

"The apartment key is on the kitchen counter," Kakashi tells me.

"Thank you once again!" I say.

"We'll see you!" Denizu says as they leave the apartment.

I locked the door behind them and grab my bag. I open it and grab a pair of pajamas. I find the bathroom, hop in, and take a quick shower. As I walk back to the kitchen to grab some water, I see movement out of the corner of my eye.

"What the…" I walk over and see these little eyes staring at me. "Oh you poor little things!"

I see four little eyes. Two small box turtles staring up at me in a huge wooden enclosure. Their food bowl is empty and the water dish is half full. One of them is trying to climb up towards me, failing as he falls backwards into the dirt.

"You must be hungry!" I say as I reach in and flip him back over.

I quickly run back to the kitchen and search the fridge for some type of greens. I find some lettuce, rinse it off and bring it back to them.

"Here you are, little ones," I place the lettuce in a bowl in their enclosure.

The turtles get all wide eyed and run over to the food and start munching away.

"All right, that should hold you up for tonight. I will clean out your water and get you more food in the morning," I gaze down at the turtles happily.

I then turn off all the lights, walk over to the room, and pass out on the bed.


	2. Chapter 2

**I DO NOT OWN NARUTO **

**Chapter 2**

I wake up to light shining on me from between the blinds. I groan as I stretch, still a bit sore from the day before.

'Let me go check on these little turtles,' I think as I get up from the bed.

I walk over to the living room and up to the wooden enclosure. They are already on their way over expecting me.

"Man, Gai really has you guys decked out, doesn't he," I say to them as I look at their enclosure.

It looks to be about four feet long and about three feet wide and maybe a foot deep. There is a light that is above the enclosure that I quickly turn on.

"Wow this is gorgeous" I admire all the plants growing in the box.

Both little turtles are looking at me with wide eyes. I reach towards one and start petting its head and he stretches out letting me pet his neck.

"Awww you two are adorable!" I reach over to grab the water dish. "Let's go ahead and get you all some fresh water and food before I head to the hospital."

I walk over to the trash can and wipe off all the excess dirt. I then grab a cloth and some water and clean off the water dish. I go back to the enclosure and place the dish back. I grab some water from the kitchen and fill up the dish.

"You two were thirsty, huh?" I smile as I watch the two little ones crawl over to the dish, climb in, and start drinking water. "Let's go ahead and top off your food."

I look back in the fridge for more greens. I grab some mustard greens, chop them up, rinse them, and place them in the food dish.

"All right, you two should be all set till I come back later today," I wipe my hands clean.

I change out of my pajamas and into my clothes, wash my face and brush my teeth. After I put my sandals and jacket on, I walk out the door.

"I don't know where the hospital is…" I say to myself as I walk towards the village. "Maybe I can ask someone…"

I walk towards the main roads in the village and the people are hustling around and busy, everyone in their own world.

"Are you okay?" A voice says behind me.

I turn around and see a young lady with shoulder length pink hair and bright green eyes.

"Hello! I'm actually lost to be honest," I say while rubbing the back of my neck. "I'm trying to find the hospital. Would you be able to tell me where it is?"

"Oh, I'm on my way there myself!" She says with a smile. "I can take you there if you want!"

"Oh that would be lovely!"

"My name is Sakura Haruno."

"I'm Mizuki Kyoto," I say with a slight bow. "I'm also very grateful for you helping me."

"Oh it's no trouble at all!" She begins to walk. "This actually works out. Lady Tsunade told me I would be supervising a new medical-nin named Mizuki. That must be you."

"That sounds like me unless there's another medical-nin named Mizuki!" I laugh. "I actually arrived to the Leaf yesterday so today is my first official day."

"Well welcome to the Leaf. I hope you're liking the village so far. It's sad that it's in these circumstances that you're here."

"It is unfortunate that it's because of the war," I say with a sad tone. "However, I'm happy I'm able to finally be in a major village to continue studying medical ninjutsu."

We continue to walk through the village for a couple more minutes. Eventually we come across a tall building.

"This is the hospital," Sakura tells me as we walk up to the door.

We enter the hospital and walk up to the main desk. Everyone is walking around keeping up with their busy work. I see a couple young ninja holding multiple scrolls, scurrying around.

"Welcome back, Haruno-San," the young girl says from behind the main desk.

"Hello, Amano-Chan," Sakura says with a warm smile. "This is Mizuki Kyoto. She is new in the Leaf and will be joining the team."

"Hello, Kyoto-San, welcome to the Hidden Leaf," Amano says with a bow. "If you need anything please do not hesitate to ask."

"Thank you very much, Amano-San," I say with a bow.

"Are there any patients in the emergency ward?" Sakura asks.

"Actually yes," Amano grabs a scroll and hands it to Sakura. "This chūnin just arrived from a mission with severe injuries. The medical-nin managed to get him stable, but he's still in pretty bad condition."

"I will make sure we get right to it. Thank you, Amano-San," Sakura turns and walks down the hall. "Come on Mizuki, let's see what you can do."

"Coming!" I quickly catch up to her.

We quickly walked down a long narrow hallway. I look around and see a lot of medical-nin carrying paperwork, supplies, and moving patients. We make another couple turns when we finally reach the emergency ward.

"All right, so our patient is Michi Abe," Sakura says as she reads his file. "He suffered some major internal trauma as well as a fractured leg… Lady Tsunade says that you have ten years of experience, correct?" She then looks up at me.

"Yes, I have ten years of experience, and I have mastered the Mystical Palm technique," I say eagerly.

"Oh really! Well then I'll let you handle Abe-san while I supervise you," Sakura leads me to Abe. "I'm going to be evaluating you today and reporting back to Lady Tsunade to see where we can place you."

"Yes, Sakura! I look forward to showing you everything that I'm capable of."

I walk into the room where Abe-san is. He is laying on the bed, bandaged up, with his injured leg raised.

"Hello, Abe-san." I say to him as I walk over. "I'm Mizuki Kyoto, and I will be taking care of you today."

"Hello, Kyoto-san," he says weakly.

"It says in your file that you were on a mission when this happened?"

He nods.

"You want to try and tell me what happened?"

As he explains his mission, I'm moving my hand across his chest and abdomen sending chakra into his body accelerating his natural healing abilities. He winces a couple times, but I keep him talking, distracting him from the pain.

"Go on and continue Abe-san," I say to him when i notice he's stopped talking.

"We ended up being ambushed," he continues to say. "Ten bandits, all very skilled, against me and my teammates."

I move my hand over to the other side of his body.

"We were all tired with all the missions we've been taking," he tears up. "I ended up losing two good men out there. Only I managed to survive."

"It's not your fault Abe-san," I try to reassure him. "No one could have known you were going to be ambushed."

"I know."

"Hey," I finish up his chest and move on to his leg. "I know I'm not the best with words, but there is a reason you survived. You did the best you could do in the situation that you were in. Do not lose hope. Your teammates would not want you to lose hope now."

He stays quiet, contemplating what I've said to him. I check over his leg and heal it up.

"All right, Abe- San," I finish up. "You're all set."

"Thank you, Kyoto-San." he says. "I appreciate it."

I walk out of the room with Sakura.

"That was some impressive work you did back there," Sakura says with a smile. "You work pretty quickly as well."

"Thank you, Sakura," I say shyly. "I always try to keep the patient talking to attempt to distract them from the pain."

"It is a very good strategy."

I follow her down the hall to another part of the building.

"I'm impressed with your technique so I'm going to have you work on a couple more patients before we call it a day."

"All right!"

"So these are all patients that have been stable for quite some time," she leads me through another hallway. "We were able to stabilize them, but unfortunately, we're short staffed so we aren't able to use all of our chakra to speed heal them."

"I completely understand and will do whatever I can to heal them."

She hands me a couple more scrolls and shows me the rooms that these patients are in. We spend the next three hours healing patients. Between the two of us we managed to get eight people out of the hospital and back on active duty.

"All right, we're good for the day, Mizuki," Sakura says to me as I walk out of one of the rooms.

"Today was a tough day. I haven't used up that much chakra in a while," I wipe the sweat from my forehead.

"You did a great job today."

"Thank you!"

"I don't know about you, but I could use a lunch break," she continues to walk down the hallway back to the main building.

"Lunch sounds lovely right about now!" My stomach growls.

She leads me through another set of halls until we finally reach the cafeteria. I follow her to a small buffet where we grab some sushi, rice balls, and fruit. Once we finish grabbing our food we find a small spot in the cafeteria and take a seat.

"Excuse me, Haruno-san," A young ninja says.

"Yes?" Sakura says while taking a bite of her food.

"Hokage-sama has sent me over to summon you to her office," He says shyly. "With Kyoto-san."

"Tell her we'll be right there once we finish eating."

"Right away, Haruno-san," he says with a bow and scurries off.

"So much for sitting here and enjoying our food," Sakura sighs. "Eat as much as you can, as quickly as you can. We can't keep Lady Tsunade waiting."

With that we quickly eat our food, clean our spots, and start heading out of the hospital. We start walking towards the Hokage's office.

'I wonder what Lady Tsunade wants to talk to us about,' I think.

I follow Sakura through the busy roads until we reach the Hokage's office. We walk up the stairs and Sakura knocks on the door.

"Enter," Lady Tsunade says.

We walk in and see Tsunade sitting at her desk reading a scroll. She looks up and puts down her scroll.

"Ah, Sakura and Mizuki," she smiles. "Shizune says that you two were making some progress at the hospital."

"Yes, Lady Tsunade," Sakura says. "Mizuki is very talented and shows great potential. With her help we were able to get nine shinobi back to active duty."

"That's wonderful news. Would you feel comfortable leaving her alone in any of the wards."

I gulp and look at Sakura nervously as to what she will say.

"Yes," she says confidently. "I feel Mizuki would best be suited in the emergency ward. She shows exceptional skill with the Mystical Palm Technique. I feel with some guidance she can grow to be an exceptional medical-nin. Today I was able to leave her with some of our patients and she handled the pressure very well."

Lady Tsunade is quiet for a moment, looking at Sakura and contemplating what she said.

"Mizuki, come here please," she says as she reaches into her desk.

I nervously walk over.

"Welcome to the Hidden Leaf village," she holds out a leaf village headband. "I would like to officially have you on board as a medical-nin and a shinobi. I hope you will put your full effort in helping with our shinobi during war. Do you accept?"

"Yes, Lady Tsunade. I gladly accept and will put all my effort in helping the shinobi for this war," I say happily while taking the headband and putting it around my neck.

"Now I must reiterate the four rules that govern the medical-nin," Tsunade tells me.

I nod, too excited to speak.

"Very well. Shizune, please bring the contract," Tsunade instructs.

The young lady with the shoulder length black hair that was standing quietly next to the desk grabs a scroll and brings it over to Tsunade.

"This is the contract all medical ninja must sign," Tsunade explains. "By signing this, you are agreeing to the four rules that govern the medical-nin. First clause: no medic ninja shall ever stop medical treatment until the lives of their party members have come to an end. Second clause: no medic ninja shall ever stand on the front lines. Third clause: no medic ninja shall ever die until they are the last of their platoon. The final fourth clause: only those medic ninja who have mastered the Strength of a Hundred Technique of the ninja art Creation Rebirth are permitted to discard the above-mentioned laws. Do you agree to follow all of these?"

"Yes, Lady Tsunade. I agree to all of the rules," I say confidently.

"Very well, Mizuki Kyoto," she holds out the contract to me.

I bite my finger, see a little blood comes out, and press my thumb onto the contract.

"Welcome to the team, Mizuki," Tsunade smiles.

"Thank you so much, Lady Tsunade," I say with a slight bow.

"You are more than welcome to take the rest of the day off. Go explore the village, and I expect you rested and early at the hospital tomorrow morning. Ideally I would be having Sakura supervising you, but I'm going to be sending Sakura out on a mission. So instead Shizune here will be supervising you at the hospital."

"It will be my honor to be working with you," Shizune says.

"I can't thank you enough, Lady Tsunade." I say with excitement. "I will not let you down!"

"I shall see you tomorrow bright and early in the emergency ward," Shizune says to me.

"I will be there!"

"Sakura, if you can, stay behind please," Tsunade says.

I turn and leave the office as I walk towards the village. I send word to Denizu to meet me at Gai's apartment to tell her the exciting news. I continue to roam the village until I make my way back to the apartment.

"Here it is!" I unlock the door and step inside.

I take off my sandals and walk over to the turtles to check on them.

"Hey there, little ones!" I say as they eagerly walk over to me.

I check over their food and water and see that they are still full.

"All right, now to start cleaning this apartment," I say.

I go to my room, take off my jacket and headband, grab a bandanna to put around my hair, and another to put around my mouth. I walk over to the sink and start grabbing some cloths and cleaning supplies to start in the living room. I start wiping the dust off of all the furniture when suddenly I hear a knock at the door.

'Oh, that must be Denizu!' I think to myself as I pull off the bandanna off of my mouth.

"Hey there!" Denizu says as I open the door.

"Hello!" I let her pass and close the door after her.

She stands a few feet behind me and lets out a sigh.

"So, what's the urgent news?" She asks.

I look at her with an excited expression as I bite my bottom lip.

"Lady Tsunade has appointed me to be a medical ninja for the shinobi in the war," I say with a smile.

She is a bit surprised at this and gives me a confused look.

"But you do realize that you're going to be in the middle of danger and risking yourself out there, yes?" She asks.

"I am very aware of that. I came here for a reason and that is to aid the shinobi in any way possible. I'd be more than happy to get in the path of danger to attend to the wounded in battle."

"Mizuki..." She says with a proud smile.

"I wasn't sure how you would react if I had told you to come with me to ask Lady Tsunade to put me in a regiment where I can attend to the wounded in battle. I figured you would be upset and not let me go and instead make me stay her in the village where it's safer."

"I probably would have done that," she smiles, crossing her arms. "But I know you're determined to do what you want. I respect your decision in playing an important part in this war."

"Thank you, Denizu," I say with an appreciative smile. "I understand that you have lost loved ones in the hands of war, which is why you'd prefer for me to stay here in the village. I appreciate your concern for my safety."

We chuckle and exchange looks of appreciation.

"I have to make this meeting short," Denizu says. "Lady Tsunade needs me at her office for a mission."

"No, it's completely understandable. I'm still wiping the dust off this place."

"All right then. I'll leave you to it," she chuckles.

"Denizu," I call out as she's about to exit the apartment.

She turns back to me in surprise as she holds the door open.

"Be careful," I smile.

She nods and gives me a determined look. With that, she closes the apartment door and heads out. I pull the bandanna back up over my mouth and continue on with the cleaning.

About two or three hours have passed since I started cleaning and I've finally finished cleaning all of the dust. I go and turn off the turtles' lights and put my clothes and the rags I used in the washer. I hop in the shower, get all the dust off of me, put my pajamas on and go put the clothes to dry.

"Today was a pretty eventful day," I say to myself as I go plop down on the bed and close my eyes for the night.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

It's been about four days since I've started working in the hospital. Shizune has me working the emergency ward as well as regular patients in the morning then moving medical supplies in the afternoon. I was told yesterday that I will be sent to the Hidden Cloud Village in preparation for the war. Shizune has informed me that I will be in the Medical Division, but that position may change when I arrive.

"It's finally happening." I put on my new shinobi alliance headband and admire it in the mirror.

"You will do great, Mizuki," I tell myself in the mirror.

I look at my hands and they are shaking.

"Relax…" I take a deep breath. "There are shinobi that are going to be counting on me. This isn't the time to be scared or nervous," I take a couple more deep breaths and then walk out the apartment.

I walk to the main road in the village to take that to the gate. It is very early in the morning. The sun is not even out, yet there is so much movement. Everyone is active getting the last minute supplies out of the village. There is minimal talking to communicate directions throughout. I see Sakura in the distance.

"It's time," I take another deep breath before I walk over to Sakura.

"You made it," Sakura says with a smile. "You will be coming along with me to the Hidden Cloud."

I nod, still too nervous to speak. She senses it.

"Don't worry, Mizuki. I'm scared too."

"This is the first time I am going to be dealing with serious injuries. In addition, to dealing with a lot of death. I am scared. I have never done or been apart of anything this big. I'm just a small town self taught medical-nin." I look up to her with a tear in my eye. "What if I fail?"

"You're a very skillful medical-nin. You have surpassed mine and Tsunade's expectations, especially for being a self taught medical-nin. You show excellent technique. It doesn't matter where you are from because we are here to do one thing to save as many people as we can. We won't be able to save everyone, but we will save a lot of people," she says with a reassuring smile. "Plus, I will be in the same division as you so we will have each other's backs."

"Thank you, Sakura," I take a deep breath. "I needed that."

"Come on, let's help get this last wagon loaded." She says as she pulls me into a hug.

Sakura and I finish helping load the last wagon and set off to the Hidden Cloud.

After a few days or so, we finally reach the Hidden Cloud.

"This way." Sakura says to me.

I follow her to where all the other medical nin are. Shizune is at the head of the group telling people where to go and what supplies to grab. She also sent out the wagons with a small flank of ninja.

"Sakura, Mizuki," Shizune says when she sees us.

We both walk over to her.

"You two are going to be with me in the main Medical Division," she says. "I prefer to keep you both nearby in case of anything. You both are exceptional medical-nin and you two work well together."

"Yes, Shizune," Sakura and I say.

"Now go grab one of the bags prefixed with the necessary medical supplies and meet me by the others."

Sakura and I walk over to the wagon of medical supplies and each grab a premade bag.

"All right, Medical Division," I hear Shizune announce. "Those I stated are coming with me, it is time to move."

'It's time,' I think to myself as I walk with Sakura over to Shizune.

"The day finally came." Sakura says quietly.

Shizune begins to start running and we all follow her. Hundreds of Medical-nin running. We run for miles before she stops at this base. There are already ninja here. They were here before we got here to set up. I look around and see there is one entrance to the compound. It's surrounded by a wall and the back end of it was opened up to a river. Inside the compound were rows and rows of tents prepared for all the injured shinobi we are going to get. There's also one big tent in the middle and that is where Shizune stops and waits for us.

"My name is Shizune. I've been put in charge of this company. I look forward to serving with you all!" She announces as she holds up a little pink pig. "And speaking of serving, Ton-Ton here is not food!"

A small chuckle goes through the crowd as we all agree.

"Good. Now go and find your tents and be prepared," she says confidently. "The war will be starting at any moment and we will be getting injured shinobi any minute. We must be prepared. Go to your respective tents and start setting up your supplies."

With that everyone takes off in different directions, unloading supplies off the wagons. Everyone is focused. It didn't matter what village we had come from. We moved as one today.

Sakura and I head to our tent and begin to set up. I open up a couple cots and set pillows on them. I open up one of the chests and begin to pull out bandages and set them next to the beds.

"I'm going to fill these buckets with water," Sakura says as she grabs two wooden buckets.

"That's a good idea," I smile. "It would be good to have some water already here just in case. However, we might need more than two. I'll help you grab more."

She nods and walks out the tent. I grab two buckets and follow. We walk past the tents and see everyone running around preparing as much as they can.

"I want to say I'm prepared, but I honestly don't know what's going to happen," Sakura says quietly.

"We can only do so much," I reply.

"Not many here were alive during the last war," she looks around. "Most of us were very young or were born after."

"We can just prepare for what we believe is the worst we're going to face."

We reach the water and begin to fill the buckets.

"I hope we're ready. I hope we don't see a lot of death." I say.

We make it back to our tent and I start placing rags near the buckets. I even place some rags in the buckets to keep them soaked.

'Now we wait,' I think as I look up at the moon.

It's dawn of the next day and we've been working tirelessly. I can't begin to think about all the people that we've already lost and can only look after those we are saving.

"We've got another one!" A medical nin yells as she enters the compound.

I just finished healing a shinobi so I run over.

"What's the status?"I ask

"Low chakra and multiple injuries," she says.

"Quick, bring him to my tent."

We bring him into my tent and set him on an open cot. I begin to quickly and carefully pull off his vest and check him over. He winces.

"I got you," I say to him.

I check him over and see he has some bruising and a broken arm. I put my palms over his arm and begin sending some chakra into him to speed up the healing of his arm and bruises on his chest.

'I won't be able to heal him 100% but he definitely will be in less pain,' I think to myself as I finish him up.

"How are you doing?" Sakura says behind me.

"I'm all right," I begin to bandage him up. "I'm running a little low on chakra so I'm only able to heal major injuries right now. Everything else is going to have to be healed by time."

I look back over to the shinobi I was healing. He looks back up at me worried.

"Don't worry," I give him a reassuring smile. "You'll live to fight another day."

"Thank you," he says with a wince.

"Kyoto-San! Haruno-San!" Someone yells from outside our tent.

"You're good to go," I say to him as I run out the tent. "Just be careful with that arm."

Sakura and I quickly run outside to see a couple of young medical nin surrounding five injured shinobi.

"Please help us!" One of them says while holding up one of the Shinobi. "They're top priority right now!"

Sakura and I run over to them to help bring them into our tent. As we get closer, it's to my horror they're worse off than I previously imagined. Some have bandages across their faces with blood seeping through, others are missing arms or legs, all of them are losing a lot of blood.

"Quick, bring them in," Sakura helps guide them.

I lay one of the shinobi who has a missing arm on my cot. I quickly and carefully cut off his vest to analyze his wounds better. He winces with every touch. There's blood everywhere.

"Please relax. I know it hurts," I continue to work. 'This is worse than I thought...' I think to myself. 'He's already lost too much blood.'

Once I get his shirt off, I see that he's been stabbed very close to the heart. I grab some gauze and tie it on where his arm use to be to try and stop the bleeding. He screams out a bit.

"Please bite on this," I hold a piece of leather to his mouth. "It won't stop the pain but it can help."

He nods and bites on it. I place my hand on his chest to use the Mystical Palm Technique.

'Oh no,' I think as I notice his heart has actually been pierced.

I try to heal him but he's lost too much blood. I send more chakra into him, trying to guide it to heal his heart.

"Please don't die," I say quietly.

I can feel his breathing getting heavier and heavier, his heart slowing down under my palms.

"Please..." I feel him take his final breath. "I've lost another one…" I say with defeat as I feel the life of the shinobi fade away.

I check his pulse to be sure, in denial that he's truly gone. I feel a hand on my shoulder.

"It's okay, Mizuki...We can't save all of them," Sakura tries to reassure me.

"I know, but it still hurts," I grabbed a cloth and wipe the blood off my face.

I watch as some medical nin come and take the lifeless body away.

"Excuse me, Haruno-San and Kyoto-San," a young ninja peeks through the tent.

"How can we help you?" Sakura washes her bloody hands.

"Shizune is requesting you both to her tent."

"Very well, thank you."

With that he bows and scurries away.

"We better go see what she wants," I wash my hands in the bucket of water trying to wash off the shinobi's blood.

Sakura and I leave our tent and make our way to Shizune's. We walk in as a couple of medical-nin make their way out.

"Ah, there you two are," Shizune says as we enter the tent.

"You needed to see us?" I ask.

"Yes. It seems the war isn't going as planned," she sighs. "Shikaku is changing up the battle strategy and as a result we are splitting up the majority of the Medical Division."

Sakura and I listen closely.

"I'm going to be sending you two along with some others to The Fifth Division which is the ninja with unique skills," Shizune continues.

"What will our duties be?" Sakura asks.

"You'll be regrouping behind the army's defensive lines, setting up a station where injured or tired shinobi can recuperate."

"How should we go about keeping the area safe? I heard rumors that they're finding Zetsu," Sakura asks.

"Since you both will be with The Fifth Division, you'll have two Akimichi clan members along with sensors who will cross check the chakra of anyone entering the area within headquarters."

"When do you plan on having us leave?" I ask.

"Immediately. We already sent out wagons throughout the day and night to the other flanks. Now we are sending the medical nin," she stands. "I won't be seeing you for a while, and I want you both to stay safe. You both are exceptional medical nin."

I look down fearing the worst. Suddenly, I feel arms around me.

"Don't worry, Mizuki," Shizune smiles. "You may have lost a few people, but you have saved many more. We mustn't count our losses, only our wins. Save as many as you can."

"Thank you, Shizune," I give her a nod.

With that, Sakura and I leave the tent, grab our supplies, meet with the rest of the group, and make our way to the Fifth Division.


	4. HLH4

Chapter 4

As war rages on as the white zetsu infiltrate the Allied Forces. There were reports of reincarnated individuals that are being manipulated to attack and take full advantage of inflicting damage. During this approach by the enemy there was a surprise attack from the air unearthing hundreds of thousands of white zetsu from beneath the ground. The Fifth Division is on high alert using their sensory shinobi keeping an eye on any unwanted chakra. A barrier protects the camp surroundings making infiltration difficult.

"I'll bandage it…" Sakura tells a shinobi as she bandages his arm. "Okay. That should do it."

"Thank you," he stands up and leaves.

"Take care," she then calls out. "Okay, next please."

Another ninja walks in. He's tall, pale, with long black hair, and white eyes.

"Neji," she says with a smile. "How are you?"

"Tired and in pain," he says bluntly and then looks at me.

"Neji, this is Mizuki," Sakura introduces me. "She's been my partner here in the Medical Division."

"Hello. Nice to meet you," I smile.

"Hello," he simply says.

He takes off his jacket and shirt and sits down with his back towards Sakura. She begins to look him over and bandages him up.

"I've taken care of all your external wounds," she finishes him up.

"Thanks," he says tiredly.

"Please get some rest while you can," she says to him. "Especially your eyes. You shouldn't overuse them."

"That's easier said than done," he places his hands to his eyes in pain. "My job is to discern things faster than anyone and notify HQ in order to improve our chances in battle. To do that, I have to put my eyes to work."

"I know that," Sakura tries to reassure him. "But while you're here…"

"Thanks," he stands up, not letting her finish.

He puts his shirt on, grabs his vest, and then leaves.

"He's a talker, isn't he," I say to Sakura.

"He's always been a ninja of duty," she says. "He's considered a genius in the Hyuga clan and of his generation. He's been opening up more lately."

"I guess it's the stress of the war."

"It can do that to people."

We hear shuffling outside and multiple ninja running around.

"I wonder what's going on," I get up and walk out of the tent.

Sakura follows behind me.

"B-bad news! Toyosa, Takemaru, and Hino are dead," a medical-nin yells out. "Someone has assassinated them!"

"What!" another nin says.

Outside they have the three dead medical nin on the floor covered in blankets.

"What's going on?" I ask.

"A spy has infiltrated us," a shinobi replies.

"They're targeting jonin medics," one of the medical-nin says. "But how? In order to get here, everyone's chakra undergoes strict verification."

"It's impossible with a simple Transformation Jutsu," Sakura says. "And you cannot get through here unless you're a shinobi of the Allied Forces. Which means that an Allied shinobi is being manipulated by a jutsu. It's highly probable. It's a formidable jutsu."

"What happened here?" Neji walks over.

"Neji," Sakura says.

"Three jonin medics have been killed," I say. "We think someone is possibly being manipulated by a jutsu."

"I see," Neji says with his hand to his chin, analyzing the situation. "If there are only Allied Force Shinobi here, they'll be hard to distinguish. We can't tell who the suspect is. We're all standing around right now, and it could be any one of us."

Everyone gives each other either a worried look or a suspicious one, shuffling uneasily from one foot to the other and watching each other from the corners of our eyes.

"And this is sure to breed suspicion among us," Neji continues. "That's what the enemy is hoping for."

"We medical ninja are critical for our battle strategy to succeed," I say. "There's no way you can confront the undead from the reanimation jutsu without our back up.""If we're paralyzed now it will ruin our chances in the battle that starts at dawn," another ninja says.

"I'll find the killer with my own eyes!" Neji says confidently.

"In any case no matter what happens, we cannot ignore the wounded," Sakura says. "We'll continue our treatment. But we must be extra careful, especially the jonin medics."

Sakura and I go back to our tent. It is late in the night so we tidy up to try and get some sleep before the next wave of injured ninja.

I sense someone outside the tent.

"I think someone is here," I say to Sakura, looking over to the entrance.

"I sense it too," she says.

We're both on edge thanks to a unknown killer on the loose. A ninja walks in with his head bandaged and his arm casted up in a sling. Sakura turns towards him and stands up.

"Oh it's you," Sakura smiles. "Is your wound still bothering you?"

"Oh no it's fine," he says surprised. "Actually, ever since you treated me, I haven't been able to stop thinking about you."

He hands her a note.

'Oh he likes her!' I think with a blush as I watch him speak nervously and unsure.

"What is this?" she says while looking at the note.

"It's what they call a love letter," he says shyly. "When I go into battle again, there's no guarantee that I'll come back alive."

She looks at him surprised.

"So…" he asks shyly.

"Thank you," she says. "But I'm already in love with someone."

"Oh, I see...I guess he's probably a Leaf shinobi."

She looks down sadly.

'She's never mentioned anyone,' I think as I look at her. 'I wonder if he is out there on the field.'

"Well, a rejected man has no right to pry into who you love," he says while rubbing the back of his neck. "I understand. I'll go now."

"I'm sorry…" she says quietly.

"I hope it all works out," he turns to leave. "If you love him, he must be a great man."

She stands there holding the letter. She turns around and sits at her desk. She looks so sad.

"Sakura?" I say quietly as I sit next to her.

"Sorry," she wipes her face.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"It's a long story."

"We have a long night."

She contemplates telling me.

"His name is Sasuke," she says with a deep sigh.

Quietly, Neji enters the tent and places his hand on Sakura's shoulder. We both jump as we turn to him.

"You alright?" he asks her.

"Neji," she says with a jump.

"It's easy to get discouraged. We don't even know who we're fighting," he turns around and walks to the other side of the tent.

"I know, we must be careful," she says quietly that only I can hear her.

Sakura looks at him suspiciously.

'Something is off about him,' I think as I watch him closely.

Sakura and I continue to reorganize our supplies, staying very quiet and watching him from the corner of our eyes.

"By the way, Sakura, where is Captain Shizune now?" he asks with his arms crossed.

"Huh? Did you figure something out?" she asks.

"Yeah. A little..." he replies "We need to be in contact to report anything, no matter how trivial it is. Until we find the suspect."

We nod in agreement.

"Well I think she's in tent B-2," Sakura says. "Shizune is treating Tonton. Seems like a bad leg sprain."

"Well that's better than injuring a hand," Neji holds up his hand.

Sakura and I look up suspiciously at him.

"Will they be able to rejoin the battle?" he asks

Sakura and I both catch it but play along.

"I think so," I say testing the theory. "Tonton can still weave signs since the hand is uninjured."

"I see… that's good," he holds out his arm. "By the way, Sakura. Would you mind taking a look at my arm one more time? It hurts a little."

"Sure," she points to the stool next to her. "You can sit over there."

He pulls out a kunai and goes to attack her. Before I can even warn her, she slams him straight into the ground using her super strength, causing the chairs to fly in different directions. I quickly cover my face with my arms to protect myself from the flying debris. She holds him down to the ground.

"How did you know?!" Neji asks while he's pinned to the ground.

"Pigs don't have hands!" she says pissed off.

"Tonton is a pig?" the fake Neji turns into a white zetsu.

"So you're the murderer?" she throws another overpowered punch.

He screams out in pain.

"Tell me," she looks down at him. "How were you able to recreate Neji's chakra? What kind of jutsu is it? Explain or you'll get another one!"

She then holds up her fist about to punch him again.

"My Transformation Jutsu is the best," he says with a sly smile. "I may not be the only one who has infiltrated this place."

"If this is just like Captain Yamato's report about Parasitic Clones, this transformation also replicates the target's chakra. It's difficult to detect. At the Five Kage Summit, Zetsu of the Akatsuki suddenly emerged from other people's bodies. He had to absorb their chakra," I say to Sakura.

"You're able to manipulate the chakra that you absorb. You can transform your chakra into your victim," she says connecting what I said. "Isn't that right?"

"Well I wonder about that," he says.

"You may be able to camouflage yourself, but you're not very good at lying, are you?" she says.

"What happened?" a shinobi runs in.

"Did you hear that loud sound just now?" another shinobi says. "Who's that?"

"I have to contact HQ immediately! Please take care of this guy," she tells the shinobi. "Mizuki, come!"

He quickly comes over and holds down the white Zetsu. We both run to Shizune's tent.

"What happened?" a ninja says

"We have an emergency," I say as we run towards the tent.

"Lady Shizune, reporting," the ninja outside of Shizune's tent says.

"Let them in," Shizune says.

"We must inform HQ that it's Zetsu and he is able to mirror chakra imprints," Sakura says.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

"We must send word to HQ," Shizune runs over to our communication devices.

Sakura and I quickly follow.

"We know who the enemy is," Shizune says into the Chakra Transmission Communication Device. "It's White Zetsu transformed into Allied Force Shinobi! They are able to mirror chakra imprints! During the day battle, if one of our shinobi got his chakra absorbed, White Zetsu can transform into him completely."

"Thank you for the update, Shizune. I will tell Shikaku now!" Inoichi says. "We will inform the others immediately."

"We will let you know if we find out anymore information," Shizune says.

"Understood," he replies.

We then walk back to Shizune's tent. Sakura and I walk in the tent while Shizune speaks to the guards.

"No one is allowed near my tent," she tells her guards.

"Yes, ma'am," they say.

Throughout the night, there were more attacks against the jonin in our care. No one knows who is the enemy and who is an ally. Outside of Shizune's tent are at least 15 jonnin on the ground, injured by our mysterious attacker. They are in the care of our medics.

"No one is allowed near Lady Shizune's tent," a guard says loudly. "Anyone making a move will be considered an enemy. So just stay put. Don't move! You must not move!" he tells the jonin on the ground.

We put on some lab coats, wash our hands and put on gloves. Someone had moved the White Zetsu into Shizune's tent so she can analyze it. Shizune also assigned a samurai to guard the White Zetsu. We begin to cut open and take samples of the Zetsu, running his genetic code through the computer.

"Sakura, Mizuki, take at look at this genetic sequence," Shizune says while looking at a computer.

We both walk over and look at the screen.

"It's finally done?" Sakura asks.

"It's changed and become even more like Captain Yamato's than it was at the Five Kage Summit," I look closer at the screen.

"In other words, there's very little difference from the First Hokage's genetic data," Shizune says. "So it was true."

"What are you saying?" The samurai shinobi says. "What's this about the white guy and the first Hokage?"

"Namely, this white guy is a clone of the First Hokage," I say.

"Or rather, judging by how many there are, the First Hokage's cells were cultivated and using mobile plants as a medium clones that can move were created," Sakura bounces off.

"They are diluted in strength but they still use the wood style," I continue.

"Huh? I still don't get it," the samurai says. "But I'm supposed to guard you against plants. Right? Well then how about using termites?"

"Looking at this data, I'm sure Captain Yamato is being used to make these clones stronger," Sakura says.

"I'll notify HQ immediately!" Shizune says.

Shinzune proceeds to leave to the communication device to inform HQ of our discovery.

Sakura and I are sent back to our tent to continue looking over the injured shinobi. I turn and see Sakura looking sadly at one of the shinobi on the bed.

"We're not taking in any more patients," Shizune walks into our tent. "We just received orders to focus on the wounded we have here already."

"But they keep bringing in wounded from the battlefront," I say to her.

"There's no way for us to distinguish who is an ally and who is the enemy in disguise," Shizune says.

"But that's not right…" Sakura says quietly.

"I know it is not right," Shizune says, "But that's what we can do for right now. So you two go and save as many as you can, but keep your guards up."

"Yes, Shizune," we both say.

Sakura and I immediately go to the other tents and start analyzing the patients. The other medics managed to take the majority of the injured shinobi and lay them on cots in one tent.

"I'll start over here," I tell sakura as I make my way to one side of the tent.

"Oh thank goodness you two are here!" Sukui runs over. "We've been overwhelmed."

"Sorry we took so long," I say with a reassuring smile. "We're here now."

"Please help with her," she leads me over to an unconscious shinobi. "She went unconscious as we were trying to heal her."

I begin to look her over.

"She is suffering from internal bleeding," she says. "I can't find the source of her bleeding."

I place my hands on her chest, sending my chakra into her. I close my eyes letting my chakra guide me to her wound. I feel something, a small pulse.

'I found it,' I find the source of her bleeding. "It's her lung."

"Really?"

"Small opening but enough to cause damage. Let's see if I can close it up."

I concentrate as hard as I can. I'm using the mystical palm technique and concentrate it to the opening in her lungs. Soon she coughs up a bit of blood.

"Hang on!" I say to her. "Bring me a hemostat! Quickly."

"Mizuki," she then shakes her head. "Yugao, take her away."

"All right," Yugao helps the girl up and takes her away.

She collapses as she tries to walk. I look down in defeat.

'We're in a stand still. How are we supposed to help people?' I think.

"It's okay, Mizuki," Sukui tells me. "I know it's hard and we can't save everyone. I hate this war too... "

"The ones with kekkei genkai and their relatives and those families with special ninjutsu abilities are being given highest priority in handling and safekeeping. When everything is over, we'll send them back to their villages with the rest of the deceased," Sakura says to me as we watch the shinobi grab some of the dead and put them in bags.

Sakura goes outside to call on Yugao to help her with something when there's a giant explosion.

"That explosion," I cover myself "It was from the vault!"

I run outside and see Sakura. We then run toward the vault. We make it to the vault and there's a lot of smoke and a huge fire has broken out. We see shinobi laying all over the ground, passed out. Standing there in front of the smoke and fire is a reanimated Leaf shinobi holding a giant scroll.

"That man is Hayate," Sakura says.

"The scroll he has is the KIA list!" Sukui throws a kunai at him and he easily dodges it.

Sukui throws more kunai at him and another reanimated shinobi jumps in front of him and blocks the kunai.

"The bodies of elite shinobi have been taken! Get them back!" Sukui exclaims.  
"Yes!" a couple of shinobi run toward Hayate.

They run toward the reanimated shinobi and one of the reanimated shinobi walks forward with his scythe and knocks them all out. The other shinobi jumps up and starts snapping their necks with ease.

"Don't flinch!" a shinobi runs toward the ninja with the scythe and stabs him in the gut.

Two others come up and stab him as well. The guy with the scythe pretends to be injured.

"Not!" he says while laughing.

With one swoop of his scythe, he knocks them all down to the ground. His stab wounds instantly heal.

"Get a taste of this," the other reanimated shinobi says while throwing a giant rock in the air and it breaks to pieces, slicing and killing the majority of the shinobi fighting him. "This is fun!"

"That's enough. Let's go!" Hayate says.

They then jump and leave the area.

"Where's Shizune?" Sukui says

"She just went into surgery," Sakura replies

"All right. Notify HQ about this immediately," Sukui says. "And get the wounded inside the tent!"

"Right!" another medic says.

"As for the scrolls with the bodies of the elite," she says while looking down.

"I saw the faces of the assailants," Sakura says. "I believe one of them was a Hidden Leaf special jonin, Hayate Gekko."

"I see. This medical tent must be guarded too. Looking at the situation, we can't spare many people. We'll have to contact HQ and ask them to send reinforcements. But Yokaze, will you go? "

"Yes," he says.

"We'll go too," Sakura says, referring to me. "Our battle and healing skills will increase the odds of success for this mission."

"Thanks. Also, Yugao, I want you to go too."

"What?" Yugao says.

"I know that you're not part of the combat force, but a sensory-type is essential in order to track the enemy. You're the only one available now."

"That's impossible! I can't…" she says while shaking her head.

"Yugao?" Sakura says

"This is an emergency. State your reason!" Sukui says.

"That man, Hayate Gekko, was my lover," she says seriously.

"I know how hard this is for you, Yugao," Sukui says. "Even so, you're the one for this mission."

"Sukui..." I say

"It's cruel, I know," she says, "But in order to reduce casualties on our side, we need as much intel on our enemy as possible. It might even help us save lives. Now go, this is an order."

Yugao does a sad nod in agreement. We all quickly change out of our medic outfits and into our ninja clothes and put our green vests on. When then quickly leave the compound and head in the direction that Hayate went.

"You think she'll be all right?" I ask.

"This is going to be unpleasant." Sakura replies.

We make our way to a cliff, stopping to track the reanimated ninja.

"They've erased their scent," Yokaze says. "Having a sensory type was smart."

"Yugao, can you pinpoint the target?" Sakura asks.

"They've moved, detouring around the battleground to the forest up ahead at two o'clock," Yugao steps forward on the ledge.

"If we go around, we could confront them head on," Yokaze says.

"Okay, before the fighting starts, we should know about who we're fighting," I look at Yugao.

"Hayate Gekko is an expert in the Hidden Leaf Sword Style," Yugao says sadly. "He specializes in the Transparency Jutsu. He's highly skilled. You want to avoid close combat."

"Let's hurry!" Sakura says

We all then jump up over the clift to go catch up with the ninja. We managed to get ahead of them and set up some paper bomb traps for them to run into. We can see them running toward us. I can see Hayate say something and quickly jump back. One of the reanimated ninja wasn't quick enough and gets injured from the blast. Through the smoke we can hear one of the ninja laughing.

"Oh, I see," he says while his limbs grow back. "This is what it means to have a body that can't die. This is pretty convenient."

"Don't talk too soon!" Yokaze comes with a giant rock and slams it down, sealing the reanimated ninja.

"A posse, eh?" the other reanimated ninja says. "That's more like it."

"Two left," Yokaze says.

"I wish we could've stopped at least one more," I say.

"That one disappeared quick," the ninja with the scythe says. "That's perfect though let's share the prey, fifty-fifty," he holds up a hand sign.

Clones of him appear and they both pull out the scythes and run towards us.

"Please take care of that one!" Sakura says to Yokaze and Yugao referring to Hayate.

"Right," Yokaze says as Sakura and I run toward the man with the scythe.

I take on one of the clones and Sakura is taking on the other one. We can hear behind us Yokaze fighting with Hayate and soon he falls.

"Yokaze!" Sakura says.

"You should pay attention!" the clone slams his scythe down, barely missing Sakura.

"Go after her too!" the clones says to me.

He then runs toward me, slamming down his scythe and I quickly dodge it.

'This isn't good...' I keep dodging the attacks. 'I've never been in a fight with an actual shinobi. I'm a medical nin, not a shinobi.'

I keep flipping and dodging the attacks that he keeps throwing at me, staying quick on my feet.

"Stop dodging and fight!" he yells angrily.

"Mizuki, don't hold back!" Sakura yells while dodging another attack.

As I jump back, I concentrate my chakra, creating a small electric field,

'This will be the first I do this in a battle. It better work!' I think.

I jump off of a nearby tree, flip over him, barely missing his scythe, and strike him right in the back of the neck with the tips of my fingers, sending electricity into his nervous system. He's paralyzed for a split second then he poofs away with smoke.

"I had the clone!" I land on the ground.

I turn and see Hayate walking toward Yugao.

"Yuago, take Yokaze's sword!"

I can see her shaking.

"I can't," she runs.

"If you don't!" Hayate tries to hold back.

He then jumps up to slice her. She tries to dodge it when Yokaze gets up weakly, jumps, and gets in the way of the attack, blocking it with his body. He then kicks Hayate straight in the stomach sending him flying back. I turn and see Sakura dodging the attacks from the scythe. She then jumps toward him and punches him.

"That's all you got?" he heals.

Soon a giant rock comes down on him and a seal appears. We turn and see Yokaze very weakly holding up a sealing jutsu from the ground.

"You're the only one left." I say towards Hayate.

"I have to go," Hayate says.

He then jumps up and leaves. Sakura and I then run toward Yokaze.

"Yokaze," Sakura says.

Yokaze is in a lot of pain. We grab him and take him near a river protected by a rock above us.

"Please bear with the pain," I say to him. "I'm going to close the wound."

I take a closer look at his wounds and it looks bad.

"Yokaze can't continue on with the pursuit," I say.

"I'm sorry. It's my fault," Yuago says.

"No," Yokaze says. "But it was true then? That you can't fight?"

She nods.

"I'm sorry," he says to her. "I always dreamed about becoming an Anbu Black Ops, so I lost my head earlier."

"I'm going to get some water," Yugao stands up and walks to the river.

Sakura glares over in Yuago's direction.

"Everything all right, Sakura?" I notice her glare.

"Something isn't right," she mutters. "Keep healing Yokaze," she then stands and goes after Yuago.

A couple minutes go by and I finally have Yokaze stable. I see Sakura running back to me from the river.

"Is Yokaze stable?" Sakura asks.

"Yes," I sit back and wipe my forehead.

"Then let's go. We have to stop Hayate. Yuago will stay here with Yokaze."

We both take off running in the direction Hayate is going.

"Yuago said he hasn't changed course so we should be able to catch up to him," Sakura says as we run.

We begin jumping through the trees going as fast as we can. After a few minutes we can see him in the distance. Sakura jumps up and throws kunai at him. He immediately senses them, turns around and blocks them all. We all land on the ground staring at each other.

"Please stop, Hayate Gekko," Sakura says out of breath.

"You're Sakura Haruno, right? You've become a fine shinobi," he says with a proud smile. "I don't want to kill you," he then holds up his sword.

"And I can't let you go," she says while getting into a fighting stance. "I can't let you have that scroll."

With that they both jump up and she kicks right through a tree having it land on him, causing dirt and dust to be everywhere. Through the dust he jumps out heading straight for Sakura. He swipes at her a couple of times with his katana and she dodges each one.

"I won't get into your line of attack!" she says as she continues to dodge.

She then jumps up into the air and comes crashing down, punching and breaking the ground. This causes the ground to quake. The ground is moving everywhere and we lose our balance. I have to jump up to higher ground to get out of the way.

"Right there!" she throws kunai in his direction.

He quickly dodges out of the way.

"Where'd he go?" Sakura asks.

She jumps into the air, scanning the ground looking for him. All of a sudden, she is slashed on her arm.

"Sakura!" I yell as she lands straight to the ground.

"Please run away!" Hayate yells out as he comes down with a killing blow.

I run over trying to get to her before he lands that attack. He beats me to her and slashes her on her side.

"Sakura!" I yell out as I stop in my tracks as she poofs and a log is in her place. "The substitution jutsu," I say to myself with a smile.

"Yugao!" he yells out as he turns around.

Behind him I see Yugao and Sakura.

"I'm here," Yuago says to him. "I'm sorry I'm late."

"Thank you," he says to her.

"I'll assist," Sakura says to her.

"No, call the Sealing Corps," Yuago says to her as she pulls out her Katana. "Killing him won't stop him."

"Right," Sakura says. "Mizuki, you stay here and keep an eye on things. Let Yugao handle this unless she needs help. "

"All right," I nod.

Yugao and Hayate begin to fight. They both use a type of shadow clone jutsu and they are moving so fast I can barely keep up. I look up and I see that Hayate has Yugao pinned against a tree. He missed her with his sword by an inch.

"Yugao!" Sakura yells with two sealing corp ninja following her.

He begins to fall back towards the ground from the tree. The sealing corps quickly seal him away and we make our way back towards the compound.

"Yokaze has been rescued," Sakura says as Yugao and I land next to her.

"That's good," I say.

"Yugao," Sakura says with a sad tone.

"In the end, he protected me," she says while looking at his sealed body. "Thank you and good bye, Hayate."


	6. Chapter 6

**I DO NOT OWN NARUTO **

**Chapter 6**

We make our way back to the compound and Sukui has us go back to our duties. Sakura and I go back to our tent and begin tending to the wounded. We are organizing our supplies before the next round of injured shinobi come.

"So?" Sakura says to me.

"Hmm?" I respond.

"What was that jutsu you did against that shinobi?"

"I don't know to be honest," I shrug.

"Really, it seemed like you paralyzed him for a split second."

"Well, at one point in my studying I was super intrigued by the nervous system. As a result, I slowly taught myself to turn my chakra into electricity and used that to ease the muscles of some of my patients. However, after a few trial and errors, I notice it can paralyze people as well."

"Seriously?" she's surprised.

"Yeah, why?" I say with a confused look.

"That move sounds a lot like the body pathway derangement and so far only Tsunade has been able to master it!" she says with excitement.

"Really? It's based on a real jutsu!?"

"Yes! You should ask Tsunade to be your mentor after all this is over!"

"I don't know…" I say shyly. "I don't think Tsunade would want to train someone like me."

"What do you mean someone like you?"

"I'm talking about a small medical nin who just joined the village and who is self taught. I am no one special."

"That is nonsense!" She says getting serious. "In fact, when all this is over I will go to lady Tsunade myself. She is my sensei so what's one more student? She would be honored to have a student like you! You also already have the basics to that jutsu!"

I get tears in my eyes and begin to wipe them.

"I'm positive she won't say no. You are a quick learner too!" Sakura encourages.

"Thank you, Sakura!" I give her a hug. "You know you have been my little-big sister since I arrived."

"What do you mean?" She says with a slight confused face.

"You're younger than me so technically like a little sister, but you are so mature and have taken me under your wing like a mentor or older sibling would."

"Aw I guess you are right!" She says with a sweat drop and rubs the back of her neck.

"Thank you, Sakura. I would've still been lost had you not found me my first day here."

"No problem, Mizuki!" She smiles. "I'm glad we became friends."

"Me too."

We soon hear a shuffle at the entrance of the tent.

"I'm coming in, Sakura," Sukui says

"Okay," Sakura says.

Sukui comes in with a medical nin, both holding onto one end of a gerni.

"Place him on that table!" I say while pointing at the table.

"Take care of this," Sukui says to us. "We're moving on to the next one!"

"Okay!" the medical nin says.

With that they both run out of the tent. Sakura walks over to the table and uncovers the body. I turn to her and see her make a surprised face.

"Who are you?" she says.

The child then sits up and starts giggling. I can see Sakura is creeped out and uneasy. I look at the child and he has green eyes and long brown hair. He also has a torn up cloak around him.

"What's going on?" I notice it begins to snow inside the tent.

"Snow?"Sakura holds out her hands and snowflakes land on her.

"Hey what are you doing?" I say as the little boy jumps off the bed and grabs Sakura's hand.

"Kon, kon, kon," he says as he grabs her arm and spins her around. "It's snowing, kon, kon, kon. It's snowing, kon. "

"Huh?" Sakura says still spinning. "What?

It keeps snowing and snowing and soon we are stuck in the snow. The snow is up to our shoulders. He then runs over to both of us and flicks us on our foreheads.

"You're .." Sakura turns around with this big toothy grin. "Yota!"

"Who is he?" I ask Sakura.

"Yota can control the weather," she says to me. "My friends and I had found him when we all had just entered the Academy. We took care of him for a short time before the Anbu captured him and took him away for questioning."

She then looks sadly at him.

"That means you had died and you've been reanimated," Sakura is sad.

The snow gets so intense and high that the tent begins to lift and we are fully covered and I can hardly breathe. Sakura then does a punch and causes the snow to break apart and go everywhere.

"Mizuki, are you okay?" she asks as I get up and wipe the snow off of myself.

"Yeah, I'm better now," I reply.

"Yota!" she calls out.

"Over here!" I see him passed out from the punch she did.

"Yota," she gets closer to him.

"Forehead!" he says excitedly as he jumps up with a big grin. "Kon, kon, kon, it's snowing! Kon,kon,kon."

"Yota," Sakura says looking curiously at him.

"Kon, kon, kon, it's snowing, kon!" he dances around and more snow begins to fall.

I look around and see four shinobi with weapons surround us. They are all very uneasy by the little boy.

"The snow started again," I look up at the snow.

"You're having fun," Sakura says with a smile.

All of a sudden, the nice snowfall turns into a blizzard. I cover my face trying to block the snowy wind. Yota then pulls out a kunai. The blizzard gets so cold that my feet have ice around them and I can't move. I look at Sakura and see that her feet are frozen as well. She quickly frees herself and jumps back out of the way of Yota. She looks at him with a sad look. Yota jumps at Sakura and tries to slash her with his kunai. She keeps dodging the attacks.

"So he's not the real one?" Sakura says while dodging Yota's attacks. "But this snow is Yota's…"

All of a sudden Sakura runs forward and punches Yota straight in the face. He falls to the ground and transforms into white zetsu.

"He's a fake!" I say

"Yota," Sakura whispers with a small tear.

"Sakura?" I walk over to her.

"It's our fault that Yota died," Sakura says quietly.

"What do you mean?"

"We were kids. Barely in the Academy," she whispers looking down at the white Zetsu that was once Yota. "Yota was taken by the Anbu because they believed him to be a threat. We decided to go and break into the Hokage building in their basement where they were holding Yota. We managed to break him out and tried to get him across the river to a safe place. Some of us almost drowned and Yota saved them, but ended up passing out in the river and going downstream. When we found him, he made us forget about him."

"Sakura…"

I look at Sakura and she has a shocked look on her face.

"Sakura?" I say with concern.

"He was reanimated the entire time," she says in shock

"What?"

"We are connected right now, Yota is talking to us using Inochi's communication. And Yota just told us that he was one of the first reanimateds," tears run down her face staring up into the sky. "That he was Kabuto and Orochimaru's experiment."

"Seriously?" I say

"Goodbye, Yota." Sakura says. "He's gone."

"Gone?"

"He managed to finally die in peace," she says with a sad smile. "He died happily and doesn't want us to forget him like we did the last time."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

"Understood?" The samurai says from outside our tent. "No one moves! We can't tell who's an enemy transformation. More reanimated Shinobi may appear. Anyone who moves will be considered an enemy. So do not move!"

"In the meantime, our wounded will keep increasing…" I say to Shizune and Sakura.

"We have no choice but to wait," Shizune says. "We're under orders to not move."

"We're unable to tell who is an ally and who is an enemy," Sakura says

"I know, but it's so hard to do our job," I look down. "I wish we could figure out who is a friend and who is a foe."

"Hey stop! Stay away!" we hear the samurai say from outside our tent.

"Help!" a woman says.

Sakura, Shizune, and I turn toward the entrance of the tent. We walk outside and see a woman holding another shinobi around her arms.

"Do not approach!" The samurai says.

"What's wrong?" Sakura asks.

"He can still be saved with medical ninjutsu." The Shinobi says as she walks forward.

"Stay away!" The samurai gets in a defensive stance. "I told you not to move. There's no way to prove that you're allies!"

"But if we remain like this," she pleads as the shinobi winces. "He'll die!"

We just look at them, unsure of what to do.

"I'm begging you. Please save him!" she pleads with tears in her eyes. "Don't let my husband die in my arms!"

"Hey, what are you doing!" the samurai says as we watch her pull out a kunai.

"If you don't trust me, I'll kill myself right here," she holds the kunai to her neck. "But please save my husband."

"Stop!" I'm worried she's actually going to hurt herself.

"Come with me," Sakura motions for them to come in the tent.

"You can't!" the samurai says. "What if?"

"What if they're comrades?" Sakura interrupts him. "I must tend to them."

"Thank you," the woman slowly brings the wounded man into the tent.

I turn around to help them in and I see both the shinobi running towards us with grins on their faces slowly turning into white Zetsu.

"Sakura, watch out!" I watch them turn into white Zetsu.

All of a sudden, a yellow flash comes and crashes both Zetsu straight into the ground. I cover my face from the cloud of dust.

"Are you all right, Sakura?" a young boy asks who has yellow chakra covering his body.

"Naruto," Shizune smiles.

"Naruto?" Sakura says with a surprise.

'Naruto?' I think to myself as I look at the young boy. 'So this is the boy Kurenaii was telling me about.'

"Looks like you're alright," he says with a smile.

With Naruto's help, we're able to take back the compound. He uses his kyuubi chakra to tell who is a Zetsu and who is an ally. With that, we go and take out the enemies.

"Watch out!" Sakura says to me as she punches another Zetsu.

I turn and see a shinobi running towards me with a kunai. I dodge his attack by jumping to the left and make my way around him hitting him straight into the back, sending electricity and paralyzing him and causing him to knock out. I look to my right and I see Naruto on top of the last Zetsu, knocking him out with a rasengan. A tree appears where the Zetu once was.

Shizune has informed Sakura and I as well as all the other combat medical nin that we are to move to the front lines. Shikaku has sent orders that we are to aid Lord Bee and Naruto. I go back to my tent and grab my bag and begin packing it.

"Are you departing?" a medical nin asks.

"Yes," I say as I pack my bag with tools. "The battle here is winding down. And we have tended to all the serious cases."

"The first and second units have already gone on to aid other companies," Sakura walks over to me. "We must go as well to support Naruto and Bee. I'll have to leave their care to you."

"We non-combatants can take care of the wounded," Sukui says. "But I'm more worried about Naruto and the others. The battle there is far more intense than here."

"Yes, I know. But he's always…." Sakura says

"Sakura, Mizuki, are you ready?" Shizune runs over.

"Yes," we both say

"Please be careful," Sukui says.

"Please take care of everything," Sakura says to Sukui.

With that, Sakura, Shizune and I all run out of the compound and towards the front lines.

"Message from HQ!" Inochi says in our minds. "We have the upper hand at the battle reinforcement point! Naurto Uzumaki is standing firm! The ones we must protect at all costs, Naruto and Lord Bee are fighting with everything they've got on the front line! Gai and Kakashi are there too! To everyone in the Allied Force, I need all of you to add to their mighty hearts! Amplify it with your mighty hearts! I promise you, victory is now!"

It begins to rain as we run. We run for miles and in the distance we see a giant explosions. I wince with each explosion almost losing my step.

"Don't worry," Sakura says to me. "You can hold your own."

Another explosion happens, this time closer.

"That still doesn't make me any less scared," I say with a gulp. "But those words that Inochi said... I will give it my all. Is this the power that Naruto has?"

Sakura smiles and nods as we get closer to the front lines. We jump down into this giant cloud of smoke and land next to Denizu and Kakashi.

"Denizu-sensei!" Sakura exclaims.

"Denizu?!" I exclaim as I see the holes torn through the back of her shirt. "You used the curse seal?!"

"Relax, I'll be fine," Denizu reassures us. "Gai and Kakashi are the ones who need attention first."

We nod and she leads us over to Kakashi and Gai. Sakura walks over to Kakashi and begins healing him. I walk over to the man next to Kakashi. He is very tall, wearing a green jumpsuit with the shinobi vest and orange leg warmers.

'So this is Gai,' I think to myself as sit next to him, placing my hands on his back and sending chakra into him. 'He's quite handsome.'

"Oh. Gai..." Denizu says as I'm healing Gai. "This is Mizuki. She's the one who's been living in your apartment."

"Whaaa?!" I say surprised. "You go on ahead and tell him straight out in this condition?! The least you can do is introduce me more formally!"

"It's all right!" Guy says with a smile. "Kakashi told me you cleaned up my place and looked after my turtles...when he didn't. I appreciate that."

I blush at his warm smile and return it as I continue to heal him. I glance around and see that shinobi of the other companies are arriving more and more, as well as the Medical and Sensory Units. The Ten Tails blows the mist away with a whip of one of its tails, revealing our new, massive army of shinobi.

"How are the little turtles…" Gai asks quietly as I go across his back sending chakra into him. "Have they been eating?"

"They are adorable, and yes they have huge appetites," I smiles. "This whole war is going on and you're thinking about them?"

"I just want to get my mind off the pain for just a moment," he says with a wince.

"Just relax your muscles," I sit in front of him, putting my palms on his chest. "You won't be 100% but you will definitely be ready for the next round."

He nods and takes a deep breath.

"We're not a motley crew anymore!" Naruto exclaims to Madara. "Here is the Allied Shinobi Forces Jutsu! The world's greatest, most invincible, super-duper ninjutsu, you know! A jutsu that trumps the Infinite Tsukuyomi! Remember that!"

"The Allied Shinobi Forces Jutsu, eh?" Madara says. "Don't you think that's a bit of a stretch?"

"You're incompetent if you don't simply understand," Denizu retorts.

"We're going to stop you two with this jutsu!" Naruto adds.

"You're wrong," Obito interjects. "Why won't you realize that it's meaningless for you to stop us here? After this war, even that jutsu will disintegrate. Then someone from your side will attempt to do exactly what we're doing now. There is no victory, no matter how much you struggle. Get it through your head. There's no such thing as hope in this world!"

"I don't care," Naruto states. "I'll make sure there's hope!"

"It's meaningless to argue whether there is or isn't something during a war," Madara begins. "How about we settle this now?"

"When there's a difference of opinion, isn't the usual way majority rule?" Naruto says as he continues to look up at them. "So what do we do?"

"That's a good suggestion," Obito says. "Then...we'll call it after we've erased all of you. And..."

"I knew you'd say that," Naruto interrupts. "But..."

There's a long moment of silence as we await for them to continue.

"This world..." Obito and Naruto simultaneously say.

"Will not end!" Naruto says as Obito says, "Will end!"

"Let's go, everyone!" one shinobi says. "This is the final deciding battle!"

The Allied Shinobi all cheer and uproar in confidence. With that, many of them begin to scatter and head toward the Ten Cloud ninja perform a jutsu that flashes bright rays of light that begins to blind the Ten Tails. Stone shinobi causes the ground under the Ten Tails to lower into the ground.

'All these shinobi are so strong and brave...' I think to myself as I watch them all together. 'I'm happy to be a part of this history.'

Stone shinobi pour in quicklime into the massive hole Ten Tails is in and then Mist ninja blow water inside after it. Leaf ninja then blow streams of fire to dry the quicklime and harden it to subdue the tailed beast.

"All right, Gai," I say as I finish up.

"It's my time," he slowly stands up.

"What do you mean?"

"Shikaku just informed us that only physical attacks work on Madara," he says while looking towards the battle field. "So shinobi who are skilled in taijutsu will go after Madara."

"I know I just met you," I say to him. "But please be careful out there."

He looks at me with a big grin and holds out his hand with a thumbs up.

"Don't worry, Mizuki!" He reassures. "Taijutsu is my specialty! I have the power of youth at my hands."

He looks over at Denizu and he gives her a nod that he is ready to go. He and another young man that looks just like him run over to Denizu.

"The medical unit is going to be coordinating with them and we will keep attacking Madara for more than 5 minutes," Sakura walks over to me.

I nod. I turn and look at Denizu and see her activate her curse seal. Black flame-like markings spread around her body.

'Be careful Denizu…' I think to myself in worry.

"Denizu-sensei! You watch over Kakashi-sensei here!" Naruto says. "He needs more time to rest before going in to back us up."

"Sounds good," Denizu says.

Naruto jumps to the Ten Tails with his Rasen Shuriken ready, and the rest of the shinobi jump in as well.

"Allied Shinobi Forces Jutsu!" Naruto shouts.

Sakura and I stand there as we watch Naruto and the rest of the shinobi leap down toward the Ten Tails. Suddenly, the Ten Tails pushes back with its freed tails, sending everyone flying back. I cover myself from the dirt and rocks as shinobi land around us.

"I thought the Ten Tails was subdued!" Kakashi is surprised.

I look up and see the Ten Tails leap out from the hole it was in. Its bony body has now fully formed.

"Oh shit!" I look up at it.

"We have to stop that thing or else it's over for us," Kakashi says.

He then looks surprised. We then see that the Ten Tails is forming an orb in its mouth, ready to attack.

"I can't talk to him at the moment," Kakashi glances up at the Ten Tails. "My kamui won't make it in time!"

"Let me help you!" Denizu says. "I'll take in some of the blow with my own Kamui."

"We won't make it in time," Kakashi then turns to Captain Kitsuchi. "Displace it upwards using an Earth Style technique!"

"Right!" Kitsuchi nods.

He slams his hands to the ground and a piece of the ground moves upward under the Ten Tails' foot, causing it to lose balance and shoot the purple attack upward and away. The attack lands miles away as it explodes.

"That far away?" Kakashi wonders as we look over at where the attack explodes. "It's so much greater than all the previous Tailed Beasts. What power!"

The Ten Tails forms another orb-like attack in its mouth and shoots it upward off target again. It falls on its back from the lack of balance and force from shooting the attack. The orb hits a lake miles away. Ten Tails then forms another one in its mouth and shoots it somewhere miles away and hits a city. I'm in shock.

"A city destroyed in an instant!" Sakura says to me.

I stand there frozen in fear. Watching as the Ten Tails crawls forward and begins to charge an attack again.

"It's acting strange," Denziu says "It's aiming at farther distances."

Ten Tails shoots its diamond-like attack in a far direction again.

"That's in the direction of HQ!" Denizu says in worry.

"They're trying to get rid of our strategists and the reason we're fighting this war," Kakashi says.

We stare off in the direction the attack is flying at as we hear Shikaku's voice in our minds again.

"Everyone! I have a plan to stop the Ten Tails!" we hear Shikaku say in our heads.

As we listen to Shikaku's words, we continue to stare at the diamond-like attack that's heading in the direction of HQ. It's as if time slowed down as we watch our HQ...Shikaku, Inoichi...about to be destroyed. We all listen carefully to Shikaku's last battle plan, his last words. After a few seconds, the attack finally reaches HQ's location and a huge explosion goes off there.

"No..." I say quietly to myself.

I look over at Sakura and she looks heart broken.

"Like Shikaku said..." Kakashi says. "We just have to do what we have to do."

"Shikaku and Inoichi would most likely say, that as shinobi," Denizu says. "They're glad to have died before their children... Just as my father and mother did."

The Ten Tails then lifts its tails with hands formed at the ends and aim at the shinobi. Large, sharp wooden daggers begin to shoot out from the hands at all of us rapidly. Denizu performs some hands signs and slam her hands to the ground, summoning a flaming wall from the ground to shield the shinobi closest around her. The sharp wooden daggers burn up upon reaching the fire wall. I watch as the sharp wooden daggers come towards me. I get up to run, but stumble straight into the ground. I roll over and see them coming towards me when I feel strong arms grab me and pull me out of the way.

"You have to be more careful," a familiar voice says.

I look up and see Gai.

"Gai!" I'm surprised.

He looks down at me with a big toothy grin.

"Thank you," I smile.

He puts me down and we both look towards the field. There are hundreds of dead shinobi that couldn't escape the wooden daggers.

"Good thing I wasn't that far," he says to me

"I'm definitely grateful for that," I nod.

I hear someone groan. I turn and see an injured shinobi on the ground. I quickly run over and begin healing him.

"Please hang in there," I say to him.

He winces as I move my hands.

'This is bad…' I think.

"How is he?" Gai comes over and kneels next to me.

"Not good," I say "He took a lot of damage and his chakra levels are extremely low."

The shinobi groans in pain. I feel his life fade away.

"He's gone," I say In defeat.

I wipe my face with my sleeve and look towards the field. I see Denizu leap up into the air and flapping her black dragon-like wings to fly high above the fire wall. She performs some hand signs and shoots an enormous ball of fire at one of the Ten Tails' tails, and continue to do the same to another to stop the daggers from shooting out. One of the tails drags itself across the ground to hit some of the shinobi. She soars at the tail and begins to spin rapidly as she forms a massive Flaming Dragon jutsu around her body. She pushes the tail back away from us and sends it flying back. The other tails are causing more damage everywhere else.

"Kitsuchi! Use your Earth style to restrain the tails!" Denizu yells out.

He listens and places his hands on the ground. From the sides of the Ten Tails, the ground rises and clamps it. Ten Tails tries to push the stone walls away and crawl out. I turn and see Naruto holding Neji in his arms.

"Is Neji dead?" I ask in disbelief.

"Neji!" Gai says in disbelief

"This will continue..." Obito says to Naruto. "And your flippant words and ideology shall become lies! This is the end result of hope and ideals. This is reality!"

From afar, I can see Naruto is completely distraught.

"Naruto..." Obito continues. "What is there for you in this reality? Your mother and father are gone, as well as your master, Jiraiya. And if you keep standing against us, you'll continue to lose your friends one by one. This shall become a world where no one who acknowledges you will exist."

"Obito..." Kakashi whispers.

"The only thing that awaits you..." Obito continues to say to Naruto. "Is your worst nightmare, which you know quite well... Solitude!"

Naruto drops his head in despair.

"Why must you cling to reality?" Obito asks him. "Enough of this! Now join us, Naruto!"

Just then, Hinata raises her hand and slaps it on to Naruto's right cheek. She stares into Naruto's eyes as a moment of silence ensues.

"Brother Neji just said..." Hinata keeps her hand on Naruto's cheek. "That you hold more than one life in your hands. Do you know what he meant? 'I'll never let my comrades die.' Neither those words nor the conviction behind them are lies! Because he was able to successfully store them in his heart, and live them out to the end! Brother Neji did! It's not just you, Naruto... We all hold those words and feelings in our hearts. They're what bind our lives together and make us comrades. If we all give up and discard those words and feelings, Neji's final act will have been for nothing. And that is when...your comrades truly die! For you are then no longer comrades. That's...how I feel."

Naruto stares at Hinata in silence, processing her words.

"So stand with me, Naruto," she continues. "Because never going back on one's word...is my Ninja Way too!"

"Enough!" Obito holds his hand out in frustration.

The Ten Tails' tails then wrap around itself and leave an opening at its mouth where it forms another chakra orb that's aiming at us.

"Recharging completed!" Bee yells as he flies with Sai on top of one of his drawn eagles.

Bee leaps off the eagle toward the orb forming in the Ten Tails' mouth. Bee then turns himself into Eight Tails and hits the Ten Tails' chakra orb with one of his own and pushes it inside the Ten Tails' mouth. After a few seconds, the Ten Tails expands as the orb explodes inside itself. It deflates and collapses on the ground as Eight Tails crashes into the ground somewhere else away. I then turn my gaze back at Naruto and see that he's taken Hinata's hand into his own and stands up with her.

"Thanks, Hinata!" he says while holding her hand. "It's all thanks to you standing by my side. And Neji... Thank you."

He then turns into his full Nine Tails chakra mode and gives Hinata some chakra which envelopes her.

"Let's do this, Hinata!" he says.

"Yeah!" she responds with a nod.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

I watch as Naruto summons three shadow clones behind him, and they disperse around the battlefield to the Allied Shinobi. Naruto's clones run around and touch all the Allied Shinobi and transfer the Nine Tails' chakra on to each and everyone one of them. A Ten Tails' tail reaches out to hit Hinata, but she deflects it and sends the tail flying back.

"Naruto's chakra makes us stronger," I observe.

More tails then attack us. Choji and two of his clan members use their Expansion Jutsu to grow in massive size and stop the three tails.

"Don't mock me!" Obito yells angrily.

Shikamaru and Ino then use their jutsu and take control over Obito and the Ten Tails, just as planned. The Nara clan help Shikamaru out with the Shadow Possession jutsu and stop the Ten Tails in its tracks. Gai and I quickly head over to where Neji's body is.

"Neji!" Lee cries out in despair as he holds Neji's body.

"Lee! Stop crying!" Gai tells him.

"Lee..." Ten-Ten says in worry.

"So long as we don't abandon Neji's convictions," Gai says. "He will continue to live on, connected inside all of us."

"Let me share a little something with you," Obito calls out. "It's those connections that made me what I am today! You ought to know that bonds can be powerful curses too!"

"Naruto..." Kakashi says. "I was the one who once told you, 'I will never let my comrades die'...Those words are also an admonition aimed at myself. I haven't been able to save many comrades. Which is why I keep telling myself this time, I will protect them. But then, I end up having to face the fact that I couldn't once more. I'll be confronting those wounds...for the rest of my life."

"But that's why we're ninja," Naruto says. "We are those who endure. They'll never let you forget. But it's those wounds that prove your comrades live on inside here," he places his fist on his chest. "Your friends are still alive in here... Friends that you create inside a dream, so you can't get hurt, aren't real... That means you're just erasing your real friends! Curse or not, I want to keep the real Neji right here."

Naruto then walks past Lee after touching and giving him Nine Tails' chakra. He then walks over and infuses Nine Tails chakra to me, Kakashi, Gai, Denizu, Ten-Ten, and whoever is left. Our bodies become surrounded in red chakra as we feel it surge inside.

"It's a lot stronger than before, and more of it than last time," Kakashi looks down at his hand.

"Wow...this chakra, along with the Curse Seal's...is tremendous," Denizu says in surprise . "But I might have to be careful controlling both... Hm. I guess I'll find out what this mutated Sharingan can really do."

"Just be careful with the Curse Seal," I say to Denizu as I look at the chakra cloak on my body. "We don't know if the mutated Sharingan can fully control it and prevent it from corroding your mind."

'I do feel recharged now with this chakra. Even stronger.'

The Ten Tails then moves some of its tails up in the air. They seem to have broken out of the Shadow Possession and are reaching out towards Shikamaru and the Nara clan. Eight Tails then shoots a Tailed Beast Bomb at the tails, and the Allied Shinobi attack as well. They deflect the tails back and a bright light forms. The six tails then dig into the ground, surrounding us.

"A curse mark that doesn't go away until you die..." Obito says. "A shinobi curse that Hyuga's main and branch families gave rise to... An existence where one can only await one's death inside a cage. It's a nice analogy for our current situation. You're all exactly like that brat who just died a pointless death."

"Neji..." Naruto grows bothered as he forms Rasen Shuriken in both his hands and begins to run in the Ten Tails' direction. "Neji's will..."

The rest of us run and follow after Naruto as we leap behind him, forming a massive bird shape that's flying around and cutting through the Ten Tails' tails.

"Neji's will isn't dead yet!" Naruto yells.

Our chakra bird formation then heads for the Ten Tails' head where Obito and Madara are.

"I'll take the right!" Lee says as he's in his Gate mode.

"Gotcha!" Naruto says.

Naruto stops for a moment because of his dislocated shoulder, but Hinata fixes it with her Gentle Fist. This allows Naruto to hurl his Rasen Shuriken.

"Go, Lee!" Gai instructs him.

"Alright!" Lee nods.

Lee lunges forward at Madara and punches through his reanimated body. Naruto's Rasen Shuriken goes on to other side where Obito is and flies through and cuts off the connections stemming from Ten Tails to Obito and Madara. They jump off the Ten Tails' head and land some feet away as the Ten Tails falls to its side. The Allied Shinobi stand ready in front of them both.

"Unlike you guys," Naruto says to Madara and Obito. "I don't want to sever any bonds...or get them cut off!"

Naruto then suddenly returns to his lower chakra form without the cloak. The Ten Tails roars as it readies its fist.

"Disappear!" Madara yells.

He performs some hand signs and breathes out a large stream of fire. Obito then blows a swirling stream of fire along with it. I recognize the attacks as Majestic Flower Flame and Bomb Blast Dance. The Ten Tails then punches fiercely, causing a powerful gust of wind to combine with both fire attacks and the ground to crumble up and shake. The fire blasts blow through us, but with the Nine Tails' chakra cloaking all of us, we are unharmed. Madara then summons his Susano'o and has it send blue spiraling orbs in our direction. Obito then uses his Kamui to send out large kunai along with the orbs.

"The next round is coming!" Sakura says.

Naruto then uses his arms to swing a large gust of air to block some of them. Shinobi use the chakra tails of their cloaks to whip some large kunai away, along with the orbs. The kunai and orbs crash into the ground. Sakura and I jump away from each other to evade the kunai and orbs and then our chakra cloaks' hands block more of them. We are some fifteen apart as we look at Naruto

'Can Naruto keep this up?' I think as I look at him breathing heavily. 'Not even he is invincible.'

After the dirt clears away, we see that Obito has disappeared.

"Where'd he go?" Gai asks.

"He disappeared...he escaped," Bee says.

"He couldn't have," Denizu says.

"Above you! Naruto!" Kakashi calls out.

Obito suddenly appears from above Naruto in his Kamui, but Naruto quickly jumps away and Obito slams into the ground.

"Naruto, you're only fighting defensively now, trying to protect everyone," Obito says. "Is there any meaning to all of this?"

I look at Naruto and see he is breathing much heavier. He is clearly getting tired.

"You're only growing weaker," Obito tells Naruto.

"I don't think you'd understand," Naruto says. "Since you want to be alone...But having everyone by my side makes me really, really happy!"

Naruto then runs at Obito. Other Allied Shinobi run at Obito as well.

"That alone gives me strength!" Naruto forms his large chakra hand.

Obito quickly disappears with his Kamui, evading the attack.

"Did he run away?" a shinobi wonders.

"If the pain of your comrades' deaths is part of your bond," Obito appears high on a rock above them. "Then there's no need to protect them, right?"

"What the hell, you quibbling bastard?!" Naruto is irritated. "That's what I hate about you! That's not what I'm talking about, you quibbling idiot! I'm saying I can endure any pain if it involves my comrades. It means I don't want to give them up! It might seem selfish of me..." he then places his hand on his chest. "But it's more painful for me to not have any comrades in here!"

'Does obito see himself in naruto?' I wonder as I stare up at Obito and listen to their exchange.

The Allied Shinobi smile confidently at Naruto after hearing his words. The Ten Tails begins to roar out of nowhere and a strong force causes gusts of air from it as it breaks through Kitsuchi's stone wall. We cover our ears at the sound of its screech and roar and see that its body has shaped more.

"The Ten Tails can't be controlled anymore because you cut the link between it and me," Obito looks back at the Ten Tails. "Although I guess it's about time I became its Jinchuriki."

The Ten Tails continues to roar and flail its tails fiercely as it produces tornado-like winds. I then turn my attention over at Madara and see that his Susano'o is ready.

"Kamui!" I hear Kakashi yell.

I turn to them and see Obito quickly jumps in front of Kakashi and prevents him from using Kamui.

"Looks like you were waiting for your chance," Obito tells him. "But so was I, Kakashi."

Obito takes a hold of Kakashi's shoulder and his chakra cloak disappears.

"Kakashi!" Denizu exlaims.

"Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto also worries.

"Naruto! You take care of things here!" Kakashi says. "Denizu! I'll be back soon!"

I watch as they both disappear in Kamui.

The Ten Tails then sends a blast of air that causes us to fly back with pieces of the ground. I got thrown back some fifteen or twenty feet before I managed to grab a piece of the ground to keep me steady. I look up and see Denizu flying back uncontrollably because the strong gust caught her wings. I see her retract her wings and land on the ground some ten feet away. Thunder and lightning form, water appears, and tornados form from the Ten Tails' wrath. The winds and storm-like attack stops as the Ten Tails groans.

'Naruto is very strong to still be protecting us after all of this.' I think as I notice my chakra cloak is still around me as well as the other shinobi.

Once the wind died down I turn and see Denizu on the ground.

"Denizu!" I say as I run over to her. "Are you all right?!"

"Yeah... I'll be fine," She forces a smile.

"How's the Curse Seal?"

"Nothing bad from what I can tell... How are you?"

"Good, thanks to Naruto's chakra cloak..."

I watch as she deactivates her curse seal and her black flame like markings disappear. I look around the battle field and see naruto standing weakly, his right sleeve torn as blood runs down his arm. He is not In his chakra form anymore.

"Is that all you've got?" Naruto breathes heavily as he looks up at the Ten Tails.

I stare at him in worry. The Ten Tails then screeches as it begins to grow muscular. Naruto then falls down to one knee on the ground. My chakra cloak begins to disappear.

"Nice try pretending to be tough," Madara says to Naruto. "But it seems you've reached your limit. You've given me something to look forward to, but I think it's time you made your exit."

Denizu and I sprint over to Naruto and stand in front of him, along with other Allied Shinobi. Hinata stands a few feet to our right.

"We won't let you have Naruto so easily," Denizu glares at Madara with her Sharingan.

"Everyone! Let's join together and fight as one!" Hinata exclaims.

"Right!" Everyone cheers.

"Hinata," Naruto stares up at her in awe with a smile.

"Time for you to recover," Sakura lands behind him and begins to heal him.

"Such a futile demonstration," Madara frowns at us.

The Ten Tails then expands its mouth wide and what appears to be a red ball-like object begins to come out from it.

'It's transforming again.' I think in fear

"It's reverting to its original form," Eight Tails explains. "That was only its attack form. However...it's only one stage away from its final transformation."

We watch as the red object opens petal-like coverings, revealing its plant-like form.

"Naruto is still recovering," Denizu says. "And Nine Tails is infusing chakra right now... It's up to the rest of us."

I can feel myself shaking. The plant-like part of the Ten Tails then begins to form a massive dark red chakra ball. Winds pick up dirt in large swirls around the vast area.

"It's getting bigger and bigger..." I say as I gaze up at the orb in worry as does everyone.

"Will we even be able to handle that without Naruto's chakra?" a shinobi wonders.

"We can't waver after coming this far!" Denizu states aloud. "Naruto is putting everything into doing what has to be done."

"Denizu-sensei is right..." Sakura adds. "Naruto's words just now made it clear!"

"Yeah, he's been going out of his way even to protect shinobi like us..." a ninja says.

"That's not what we're talking about!" Sakura interrupts. "He's told us that he considers all of us his comrades from the bottom of his heart."

Some shinobi look surprised at this and repeat the word "comrades".

"That's right!" Denizu exclaims. "We are _all _his comrades! Despite being from different villages. And like he has done for us, we will fight and protect him! We will win this war!"

"Yeah! We're comrades!" many shinobi nod with confidence.

"Comrades!" more yell.

We all gaze up at the chakra orb the Ten Tails is charging with determined expressions.

"I'll fully heal Naruto!" Sakura says. "We have to do what we have to do!"

"If we're going to die anyway..." Denizu says as everyone continues to look over. "We might as well go down fighting to the best of our abilities!"

Everyone has a stern and determined gaze.

"Just focus on healing, Naruto," Denizu says to him. "We got this!"

"Everyone! Listen up!" we hear Shikamaru's voice in our heads. "We're going to use multiple stone walls to slow down the momentum of the Tailed Beast Bomb! Captain Kitsuchi will show Ino how to perform the hand signs and she'll link to all of us to perform it at the same time! Eight Tails will use more Bombs to launch it upward!"

We all nod. In a matter of seconds, Ino links to all of us and we perform the hand signs for a simple stone wall jutsu simultaneously. The Ten Tails then shoots the Tailed Beast Bomb in our direction.

"Earth Style Barrier!" everyone shouts as we crouch and touch the ground.

Stone walls rise from the ground behind one another, and the Tailed Beast Bomb crashes through them. We hold our position as we feel the ground tremble. After some seconds, the last barrier breaks, but Eight Tails appears in front of us and blocks it. Someone suddenly appears a few feet in front of us, crouching a bit forward while holding a unique kunai. My eyes widen in surprise as I recognize the cloak the person is wearing; "Fourth Hokage" is spelled in red on the back.

"Am I late?" the man says in a friendly tone.

"Nope," Naruto answers him with a smile. "Right on time, Dad!"

"Who?" Sakura is perplexed.

"My name is Minato Namikaze," he answers Sakura. "Brace for an impending explosion."

We give him a confused look. An explosion is then heard and felt miles away as we turn to its direction.

"Ah. Of course. Your Teleportation Technique," Denizu says.

I turn and glance at Minato's custom Flying Raijin kunai in his hand.

"I sent Ten Tails' attack back toward the sea," Minato explains.

The impact from the explosion then arrives in hard gusts of wind as dirt and rocks fly around us. Shinobi are surprised and cover themselves with their arms, lots of them questioning what this shock wave is. The wave dies down after a few seconds and the air calms.

"Who are you?" Sakura asks Minato after noticing his Reanimation eyes.

"Relax, I'm an ally," Minato turns to her. "Thanks for healing Naruto! Are you...Naruto's girlfriend?"

"Huh? Hmmmmm..." Naruto wonders. "Uh-huh, yeah! I suppose you can say that!"

"You keep quiet!" Sakura has a comical annoyed expression and headbutts Naruto on the back. "Don't waste your energy talking!"

Naruto falls forward on the ground, grimacing from the hit.

"You're supposed to be healing me," Naruto weakly says to Sakura. "But I just suffered more damage..."

"I'll heal the extra damage too!" Sakura says.

I chuckle a bit at their interaction.

"That's pretty normal for them, believe it or not!" Denizu says to Minato.

Minato laughs nervously with a sweat drop.

"She reminds me a little of Kushina..." he whispers to Denizu. "Please go easy on my son," he pleads Sakura with a smile, causing her to be surprised.

"So, why did this happen so suddenly?" Sakura asks Naruto as she continues to heal him.

"It seems like you knew," Denizu says to Naruto.

"I sensed his chakra when I was in Nine Tails mode," he replies. "The others should be arriving soon..."

I then sense the presence of immense chakra arriving. Another reanimated man of older age lands next to Minato in black combat armor.

"Minato, you're as fast as ever," the older man says.

"Lord Third?!" Denizu says surprised.

"Denizu!" he turns to her in surprise. "You're alive!"

"Hm? What do you mean she's alive?" Minato is confused.

"It's really a long and complicated story..." She says as she waves her hand with a smile and sweat drop.

"In any case, it's good to see you alive and well," Hiruzen tells her.

Two other reanimated men land a few feet in front of me to my right. One has maroon battle armor, tanned skin, and long brown hair. The other has blue battle armor with a fluffy white collar, lighter skin with three red stripes on his face, and messy silver hair.

"Fourth..." the Second says. "You're better at teleporting than I am!"

"Alright, let's do this," the First says.

"Your Sharingan isn't like a typical Uchiha's," he interrupts and says to Denizu.

"Ah yes. It's your mutated Sharingan," Hiruzen notes. "How did you activate it?"

"The man who killed my parents did it," She replies. "I only just found out the truth about a lot of things recently from that man..."

"Denizu, we're profoundly sorry for not saying anything to you," Minato says.

"It was your parents' wish that you didn't know about the mutation until you were older," Hiruzen adds. "Another reason we didn't tell you is because we feared the mutation was not only a danger to others, but to yourself."

"But please know that we didn't intend to lie to you like this," Hiruzen puts a hand on my shoulder. "After your parents died, we only intended to protect you."

"Just like my parents," Denizu smiles at him in comprehension. "I know about Itachi and my clan..."

Hiruzen is surprised and lowers his gaze.

"And just like my parents..." She states. "I will fight to protect my comrades and for the sake of the Leaf!"

The four Hokage stare at her with surprised eyes.

"I sense powerful chakra from you," the Second says. "You're not the average Uchiha kunoichi."

"That's funny coming from you, Tobirama,"

Denizu says. "You had doubt and suspicion of the Uchiha. I didn't expect your interest in me."

"Wow, calling you out and by your first name," the First teases. "She's fiery!"

"However..." Tobirama ignores him. "I did have hope in a few of your clan. I also sense that you're a descendant of Kagami Uchiha. Kagami's sense of loyalty to the Leaf was so great, he never fell victim to his clan's Curse of Hatred, something that normally had a high probability of happening after awakening the Sharingan," the Second continues. "For this reason, he was one of the few Uchiha that I believed in, as well as one of the six people I chose to work directly under me. You, too, have that same vibe of Kagami's."

'The first four hokages in one place,' I think in awe as I watch them interact. 'We might have a chance to win this war after all.'

"Hm. You've peaked my younger brother's interest," the First walks over to Denizu with a curious look as he examines her. "Had you lived in our lifetime, he probably would've made you his wife!"

The First bursts with a chuckle as Tobirama gives him a stern gaze with his arms crossed. Denizu stares with a perplexed face at them.

"Hm? Odd... He isn't denying it!" the First continues to tease.

"Enough, Hashirama!" Tobirama yells with a comical annoyed expression.

"Uhhhh...are these two really our first two Hokage?" she asks.

"See?! Now she doubts our titles as Hokage!" Tobirama scolds his brother.

Hashirama turns away from us as he hunches forward, a gloomy aura surrounding him.

"I apologize, Denizu..." he sulks. "I'll have to restore my image as the First in your eyes."

"It's fine, really..." She has a sweat drop. "But who reanimated you?"

"Orochimaru summoned us," Hiruzen answers.

Denizu's body tenses up at his answer. The four Hokage notice the change in her vibe upon hearing that name.

"I know you have hostility toward Orochimaru–" Hiruzen says.

"I'll deal with that later," She interrupts him. "That doesn't matter right now. What's important is stopping this war quickly."

"But... Didn't Orochimaru die?" Sakura asks from ten feet behind us where she's still healing Naruto. "I don't know what's going on anymore..."

"There's still more help coming," Naruto says. "But they're taking a little longer."

Suddenly, Madara lands hard on a higher ground, breaking off pieces of the rocky surface. We turn toward him as he holds his gourd-like fan, grinning evilly.

"I've been waiting for you, Hashirama!" he exclaims.

"I'll deal with you later!" Hashirama points a finger in his direction.

Madara's face changes to a disappointed one at being rejected.

"I have to stop the Ten Tails, first!" Hashirama tells him.

"Heh. He hasn't changed a bit," Madara notes. "We're never on the same page."

"After all..." Hashirama then points at the Ten Tails. "It's charging toward us."

"You've done well, Naruto," Minato turns to him. "Take a little break. Your friend will be here soon... He's our ally too!"

"My fellow Hokage, let's go!" Hashirama says.

Suddenly, Minato turns into Nine Tails chakra mode, and we stare at him in amazement.

"Second and Third stand in front of me," Minato says.

Tobirama and Hiruzen stand in front of Minato, and he places his hands on their backs.

"Have you already placed your markers?" Hiruzen asks Minato.

"Yes," he answers.

"You're quick at striking too," Tobirama commends him.

The three of them suddenly teleport away. They reappear at Minato's markers, surrounding the Ten Tails, and hold up a hand sign, as does Hashirama as he stands some ten feet in front of me.

"Let's go!" he holds up a hand sign. "Ninja Art: Four Crimson Ray Formation!"

A massive chakra box encases the Ten Tails from the corners where the four Hokage stand.

"And... I'll just add on..." Hashirama's eyes are then covered with brown markings. "Sage Art: Gracious Deity Gates!"

Ten Tails is then pinned down by large, black gates that plummet from above inside the box formation. All the tails are pinned down and secured.

"What is that red barrier?" I ask Denizu.

"It's said to be dozens of times more powerful than the Four Purple Flames Formation," She answers as we gaze up at it in awe. "It's a barrier that requires four Hokage-class shinobi together to create."

"Amazing…" I mutter.

The Ten Tails wails inside the barrier.

"It won't be able to move so easily now," she adds

Someone lands close to me on my right. I see a young man about Naruto's age with black hair and eyes.

"Sasuke..." Denizu says to him. "How nice to see you again."

"Denizu..." he gazes at her. "We have much to talk about after this war."

"Heh," she gives him a smile.

"You sure took your time getting here, Sasuke," Naruto says.

"Sasu...ke?" Sakura says in disbelief.

"Is that you Sakura?" he turns his head slightly to her.

"Sasuke! Why?!" Sakura exclaims.

Another taller man with orange hair lands on Sasuke's right. Ino lands near us to our far right and is surprised to see Sasuke.

"Sasuke!" she runs over to our direction.

"Hey! Ino, stop!" Shikamaru says as he and Choji land in front of her. "He's an enemy!"

"Ino! You better keep your distance!" Choji warns her.

"You're all still as noisy as ever," Sasuke simply says.

Kiba and Akamaru, Shino, and Hinata land some feet to our left.

"Why the hell are you here, bastard?!" Kiba points at Sasuke.

"Why are you here, Sasuke?" Sakura asks.

"A lot of things have happened," Sasuke answers. "I've decided to protect the Leaf Village... And then I'll...become the Hokage."

"What?!" Sakura yells.

"You can't just come back all of a sudden and crack a lame joke like that, you Rogue Ninja!" Kiba exclaims. "Do you even know what it means to be Hokage?!"

"I don't know what happened to you, but that's not possible," Shikamaru says. "Do you even realize what you're saying?"

"Do you think we can just forget all the things you've done?" Shino adds.

"Yeah, I realize you probably can't," Sasuke replies. "But...It doesn't matter what you think of me. All of the previous Kage created these current circumstances. So I will become Hokage and change the village."

'So he's the rogue ninja that I heard rumors about,' I think as I watch all of them interact.

"I'm going to be Hokage!" Naruto exclaims.

"I'm glad there's so much interest in becoming Hokage," Hashirama turns his head slightly to us. "But you guys are taking too much time! Start infusing chakra right now! We'll take down the Ten Tails with an all-out attack."

"Thanks for healing me, Sakura," Naruto gives her a smile. "Now it's your turn to get some rest. Let's go, Sasuke!"

Naruto and Sasuke head away on top of a large rock in front of where the Ten Tails is boxed. I then watch as Sakura quickly makes her way up by Sasuke and Naruto.

"So do you see me as some sort of weak woman who can't keep up with you two?" Sakura crouches on Naruto's right. "Do you think Lady Tsunade would be the only one out of the Legendary Sannin to inadequately train her student?"

I watch as Sakura stands upright with a confident air.

"I'm almost there..." she continues. "I'll be at full capacity in a little bit. Then I can output my true power. Just like you, I'm a member of Team 7, and I'm a student of one of the Legendary Sannin!"

"'Sakura... I say with a smile.

"Denizu-sensei," Naruto calls back to her. "Don't think we're leaving you out of this."

"You're also a part of Team 7," Sakura adds. "You've been with us for not too long, but you're still our sensei! You've proven that!"

"You proved that to me years ago with me and my brother," Sasuke adds. "Don't think I've forgotten that."

"You're entrusted with these young shinobi," Hashirama turns his head slightly to Denizu. "I have no doubt you'll lead them well."

"We got your back," I give her a reassuring look like the rest of the shinobi.

She nods and quickly heads over in front of the rock where Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke are standing, below in a lower level than them. Shikamaru, Ino, and Choji land near her on her right. Kiba and Akamaru, Hinata and Shino land near her left.

"We're right behind you, Denizu-sensei," Shikamaru says

"Alright! Get ready!" She shouts.

"Yeah!" Everyone nods.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

"Alright! Stand ready!" Denizu announces. "I have a feeling that even though the Ten Tails is subdued, it's still gonna be a hassle."

"Let's show'em what we're made of, ya know!" Naruto exclaims excitedly.

"Heh," Denizu says to Naruto.

I look up and see Denizu and her three students standing together.

"I'm glad to finally see Team 7 together," she says.

"Heh!" Naruto grins as he crosses his arms.

"You should take some more time to infuse chakra, Denizu-sensei," Sakura says.

"Already did! I'm ready to go!" Denizu cracks her neck.

"Okay then!" Naruto yells excitedly.

"Wait a minute!" Hashirama calls out, startling Naruto.

I turn my attention to the Ten Tails. It is forming another Tailed Beast Bomb inside the barrier.

"It's that thing again!" Kiba shouts.

"It wants to break the barrier," Denizu says.

We stand in front of where the Ten Tails is aiming, staring at the enormous charging bomb.

'Can we withstand this attack' I think as I watch the Ten Tails charge.

The bomb blasts into the barrier, causing an explosion inside. The barrier withstands the bomb, the blast shooting straight up into the sky. The ground trembles and some dirt flies around. We stare up in awe.

"It held up!" Kiba says.

"What an amazing barrier..." Shikamaru says.

"To be able to keep that thing put..." Choji adds.

I turn my gaze back to the barrier, and to my surprise, the Ten Tails looks damaged.

"It hit itself," Denizu says

"Wow..." Naruto is amazed.

"The previous Hokage were truly amazing people!" Sakura exclaims.

"Looks like they weren't all just talk," Sasuke comments.

"Wood Style: Wooden Clone Justu!" Hashirama says.

Wooden clones of him dart out around the barrier.

"I'll make entry points on all four sides of the barrier so shinobi can go in and out," he explains. "Follow me! Alright! Go!"

"Right!" we all shout and then head to the entry points.

Hashirama summons another Deity Gate to subdue the Ten Tails' head to the ground. The rest of the Allied Shinobi run to the entry points behind the Wooden Clones. The wooden clone my group is following holds his arms out toward the side of the barrier and opens a section of it.

"Now!" the wooden clone shouts.

I follow my group inside the barrier as the rest of the shinobi enter through different sides. We run toward the subdued Ten Tails, ready to attack it. I glance up at the Ten Tails. Some monster-like beings of different forms and sizes are sprouting from the Ten Tails in large numbers.

"What are those things!" I look up at those monster things.

The monster-like beings jump off the Ten Tails and sprint toward everyone.

"It's trying to keep us away from its body," Denizu says. "Don't waver!"

"You heard Denizu-sensei!" Naruto shouts.

We collide into the beings after a few seconds. I jump out of the way of one of the beings. As I am out of the way I create a small electrical field into my feet. I turn and seeing the being running back towards me. I quickly jump over it, and kick it straight into its back paralyzing it in its spot.

'There's so many of them!' I think as I look around and see more of them coming.

I turn and see a large being fly fast past Naruto and Denizu. I turn my gaze at Sakura and see that a diamond has formed on her forehead, similar to that of Tsunade's. Sakura continues to pulverize the beings that cross her path and even breaks portions of the ground.

'You go Sakura!' I think with a big smile.

"Wind Style..." Naruto says as he prepares his Rasen Shuriken after changing in Nine Tails chakra form.

"Inferno Style..." Sasuke says as he envelopes his sword in black flames.

"Rasen Shuriken!" Naruto yells as Sasuke yells, "Flame Control!"

The Rasen Shuriken flies and hits the being as Sasuke's black flames also hit and envelope the monster. Sasuke and Naruto land in front of Sakura and they stand back-to-back. Deznu pulls out her katana and gets back to fighting the beings.

'They fight so well together,' I think with a smile.

I get the wind knocked out of me as one of the larger beings crash straight into me and sends me flying back a couple feet.

"What the fuck…" I groan as I struggle to stand back up. I look straight ahead and see that same being running back towards me.

"Two can play at this game," I charge my chakra and run towards the being.

I jump to the right, barely missing it, and jab it straight in its side. The being flies a couple feet, recovers from my attack, and comes running back towards me.

"Uh oh!" I get rammed again, flying a couple feet back.

I look back up and it is charging at me again. I stand up bracing myself, charging my chakra, when a green flash passes me and kicks the being knocking it out.

"You okay, Mizuki?" Gai runs over to me.

"Gai!" I say with relief. "You have no idea how excited I am to see you."

"I thought you were a medical nin?" he says confused. "What are you doing here fighting?"

"I'm a combat medical nin," I say still breathing heavily. "Once Shizune and Sakura found out I technically know how to hold my own in a battle they brought me along. I am not the best fighter, but I can hold my own."

"Ah I see?" He says confused.

"They keep dragging me along," I sigh. "I appreciate that they see something in me, I'm not going to lie, but I have never been in a serious fight before joining the Leaf. So now I'm getting my reps in."

He quickly pushes me back as he jumps back allowing one of those beings to charge past us.

"Clearly I need more training," I stand back up.

"No better time to start than now," he says while getting in a defensive stance.

The being turns around and runs straight for us.

"Mizuki do that Body Pathway Derangement thing you did before," Gai says to me as he steps back a bit.

I nod as I create another electrical field around me, allowing the being to come closer. Once close enough i jump to its right jabing it in its side sending it towards Gai paralyzing it. Gai then uses the strong fist technique and punches the being, killing it instantly.

"This will be a great experience if I survive," I say.

"With me by your side, you _will_ survive," he says with a grin and a thumbs up.

I then hear a loud noise from above me. I look up and see Sai riding on top of one of his painted eagles, flying toward the Ten Tails. One of the beings shoots a dagger-like piece of its body at Sai and cuts through his eagle, causing it to disappear.

"Sai!" Denizu says in worry.

He managed to jump off in time and is now free falling as the beings shoot daggers at him. Naruto reaches out to him with a large chakra hand and brings him to where he, Sakura, and Sasuke are. I glance around and see that more and more of the beings appear.

'Some of these things are huge!' I think as I look at more and more of these things coming towards us.

"Keep your guard up," Gai says to me.

I glance around the Allied Shinobi and see that many have low chakra. I look over in the direction of Sakura, Naruto, Sasuke, and Denizu.

"Without Naruto's ability to share chakra," Denizu continues. "We'll most likely suffer many losses of shinobi. The Medical Corps can't come up to the front... I have an idea I wanna try but I can't attack and be sneaky at the same time. I need some distractions."

Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura bite their thumbs and slam their hands on the ground.

"Mow down and slip past," Sasuke says. "Sounds easy enough."

"This guy has the power to clear the distance in a single leap and repel enemy attacks," Naruto says.

"I can now stay nearby and heal anyone who suffers serious injuries at all times," Sakura says.

"Summoning Jutsu!" the three of them yell.

Naruto summons a giant toad; Sakura summons a giant slug; and Sasuke summons a giant snake. I stare up at the enormous creatures as Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke stand on top of their own.

"We'll distract all you want, Denizu-sensei!" Naruto calls out.

"We're ready when you are, Denizu-sensei," Sakura calls out.

"Oh no!" I see a shinobi on the ground bleeding. "Gai, can you cover me?" I run over to the shinobi.

"Yes!" Gai runs with me.

"You all right?" I ask her.

"Sort of," She winces

"I got you," I place my hands on her leg where I see blood coming from and start sending chakra into it. "I'm going to stop the bleeding and I want you to try and rest as much as you can."

"Thank you," she nods weakly.

I give her a small smile as I look up and see Naruto has his giant toad leap over the army of creatures toward the Ten Tails. The massiveness of the toad and its leap causes a shockwave that knocks some creatures down. I see Sasuke's snake slither its way through the creatures and Sakura's slug multiply into smaller ones and head around the battle field to shinobi. The large beings see Naruto and his toad, so they start hurling spear-like spikes at them. Naruto's toad takes its sword out and begins to easily deflect them while still gliding in the air.

"I finished the main wound," I say to her. "Let me check if you have any other major ones."

She nods. I see one of the beings running towards us.

"Don't worry!" Gai yells as he jumps over us and runs toward the being and kicks it, sending it flying.

"Alright you are good," I say to her.

"Thank you," she says with a small smile.

"Go get somewhere safe," I say to her as I make my way over to the next fallen shinobi.

"Denizu-sensei!" Naruto hollers from afar.

I look up and see that Denizu lands on the front of the Ten Tail's head on a spike in front of its eye. She stares into it for a few seconds and its eye begins to glow red with a tint of black. She managed to slowly stop the Ten Tails from making more creatures. After a few more seconds, the Ten Tails breaks free. It roars in aggravation and squirms in its submission. Denizu turns to Naruto and sees his Rasen Shuriken and Sasuke's Susano'o Flame Control combine.

"Get down!" I say to a shinobi as I see Naruto and Sasuke send the attack.

The attack hits Ten Tails' side and causes it to roar and squirm in pain. The Shinobi and I cover our faces from the debris.

"It was a direct hit!" the shinobi said

"We might have a chance," I say with a smile.

Naruto's toad and Sasuke's snake stop after seeing the attack hit. We gaze and see the result of the attack. I go to the shinobi and begin to heal him.

"This war might be over soon," Gai makes his way towards me and the shinobi.

"Let's not get our hopes up," I say. "This thing is unpredictable."

"Sasuke!" Naruto calls out. "There are other Tailed Beasts inside that huge one. Once it's weakened, shut off your Black Flames! Then Kurama and I will pull them out of it!"

"No," Sasuke answers. "They all burn."

"Hey! Don't you get it?" Naruto continues. "If we don't save them now, we'll end up facing a lot of trouble later on."

Naruto continues to talk, but it seems like Sasuke is having none of it. I stare at him as he watches the Black Flames burn up the Ten Tails.

'Sasuke...' I think. 'What are you doing?'

My attention then breaks from him to the chunk that the Black Flames is burning; the chunk detaches and drops to the ground, separating from the Ten Tails body. We are surprised at this as the flames slowly disappear.

"So much for burning that thing," I finish up with the shinobi.

"I feel better, thank you," he says to me.

"No problem. Now go kick some ass."

I see Denizu run up the Ten Tails' head and leap high up into the air. After performing some hand signs, she breathes out a massive stream of fire on to the creatures around Sasuke and Naruto and their summoned toad and snake. Creatures are engulfed in flames and burn away, nothing left of them. She continues to breathe the massive flames all around the perimeter, getting rid of the creatures around them. After getting a good number of them burned away, she lands in-between Naruto's toad and Sasuke's snake, gazing around at the smoldering creatures. Someone suddenly appears on top of the Ten Tails' head - it's Obito. He looks battered up with a hole in his chest and is bleeding. Obito screams and he's heard throughout the battlefield as he holds up a hand sign.

"This isn't going to be good!" I run and try to heal as many shinobi as i can.

"Help!" someone says.

I turn and see a shinobi pinned by one of those beings. I run towards her charging up my chakra. I then jab the being straight in the side. Gai comes from the other side and kills the being with another punch.

"Thank you," she tries to stand but collapses to the ground.

"Here, let me heal you." I then place my hands on her and heal her.

I look up and see Sasuke ride on his snake's head as they move in closer to Ten Tails. Hands emerge from Ten Tails' body and stop his snake from moving any further. The snake disappears in a puff of smoke and Sasuke activates his Susano'o to shoot one of its Black Flame covered arrows at Obito. Rods shoot out from Obito's shoulder and deflect the arrow. Denizu sprints quickly up Ten Tails toward Obito, dodging the emerging hands from its body. By now, Obito's hair has turned completely white and is motionless. She performs some hand signs and shoots Black Flame fireballs at Obito. They fly quickly at him, but the Ten Tails blocks them with chunks of its body.

"You're restored," I say the shinobi. "Go help the others."

She nods and takes off running. Suddenly, Minato appears in his Nine Tails chakra form in front of Obito and uses his Flying Raijin kunai to slice him across the chest. Obito collapses in front of Minato.

"They did it?" I say in disbelief.

"Has he been defeated?" the Gai says.

Soon the Ten Tails then begins to move. Its tails begin to slip out from under the Deity Gates as it begins to merge to Obito. Sasuke, Minato's Clone, and Denizu quickly jump away. The Ten Tails begins to disappear in a swirl towards where Obito was, and with the force it's emitting, They begin to be pulled in while still in the air. Naruto then reaches out with his Nine Tails chakra arms and pulls them back to safety on top of his toad.

"Gamakichi!" he calls to the toad.

"Okay!" the toad responds.

Gamakichi moves quickly and makes his way on top of a rock platform. We standby and watch the Ten Tails being absorbed to where Obito was. The Ten Tails then stops as it has now become a white ball in midair. We watch as the white ball begins to slowly crack. It then shatters and reveals Obito inside. I stare at Obito's new body form. The upper part of his outfit has torn off completely, revealing his torso. His skin is scaly and has turned into a pale green with black markings and spikes on his back.

"It's the Ten tails Jinchuriki," I look up at Obito.

I then run over to another injured shinobi. I quickly finish healing her and look at the scene before me. My attention then turns to a Deity Gate slamming down on top of Obito, followed by more and more. They create a barricade around him.

"He is breaking through!" Gai says to me.

After a few seconds, the gates fly apart into pieces. We stare with grimaces as we stare down at Obito in the wreckage. Suddenly, translucent chakra arms shoot out from Obito's back. The hands reach and take a hold of the four barrier walls. The walls are pulled inward toward Obito, and are then released, causing the barrier to vanish.

"He's broken the barrier!" I say

Obito suddenly jumps high into the air in their direction and lands some yards in front of them, down on one knee.

"Enough! Obito, stop this!" Minato exclaims.

Obito stands upright looking lost. Hashirama, Tobirama, and Sarutobi land some yards in front of Obito, ready to engage. I spot a dark ball forming over Obito's palm. He rapidly charges through Hashirama and Tobirama, disintegrating practically half of their reanimated bodies with the ball.

"What happened?!" Naruto exclaims.

"Saru! Fourth! Scram!" Tobirama yells.

There are tags stuck on some parts of Obito's body.

"Run!" I say to the shinobi and Gai as we run in the opposite direction.

I look to my sides and see other shinobi are trying to get a safe distance away. The tags ignite and explode. Smoke covers the area where Obito is. Debris flies everywhere causing some of us to fall. Gai grabs me and pulls me behind one of the rocks. I cover my face from the dust and debris.

"Are you okay?" He says to me as the dust clears.

"I'll be fine," I try to catch my breath.

"Are you sure?" He says to me. "You've been healing a lot of shinobi. You have to be low on chakra."

"It is running low, but I will make it last," I look up at him. "I may not be the best fighter, but I'm a great medical nin. I will use up all my chakra if it means keeping another shinobi alive."

Another explosion happens not that far from us.

"Minato, get away!" Sarutobi yells after jumping away.

"Lord Second, you sure work fast!" Minato says before holding up a hand sign. "Flying Raijin Jutsu!"

They are then teleported away from the scene. Gamakichi lands about thirty yards away from the continuous explosions that are now happening where Obito, Tobirama, Hashirama, and Sarutobi are.

"This is too much! What's going on? I can't keep up!" Naruto is confused.

"Don't freak out!" Minato tells him. "Always keep one eye on what's happening around you!"

Minato, Sasuke and Denizu jump down to the ground in front of Gamakichi. I peak around the rock and watch the continuous explosions take place, dirt clouds forming one after another. After a few seconds, the explosions stop. Out from the smoke appears Obito floating in midair, unharmed.

"Can he be defeated?" I mutter.

I can't keep my eyes away from what is happening. Sarutobi then summons a giant shuriken on his back as he prepares himself to engage. He hurls it and more of the giant shuriken appear in puffs of smoke, flying at Obito. He blocks them by forming a black shield from his hands and flies through the shuriken clones. He then shoots a long rod of the black material from his hands and cuts off Sarutobi's left arm. After he places his hand on Sarutobi's head, he causes his upper body to explode.

"Come on," Gai says to me breaking my stare. "We can't just stay here."

I look ahead and see the last of the beings running towards us.

"You're right. We have to keep fighting," I follow Gai towards one of the beings and help him paraylze it so he can knock it out.

"Try not to use too much of your chakra," he says to me as he punches another being.

"I'll try not to, but I'll do what I have to do," I say as I throw a paper bomb kunai at one of the beings.

The Nine Tails' chakra flares even more around Minato's body. Obito quickly leaps up high into the air in their direction. Suddenly, his body expands into the shape of a ball, causing him to crash down to the ground.

"What's going on?" Naruto wonders.

"Ten Tails and its Jinchuriki haven't completely synced," Denizu answers after observing. "This is our chance to take it down!"

"Stay back for now!" Minato sprints toward Obito.

Minato summons his original self and they both carry three Raijin Kunai in each of their hands.

"Gamakichi! Below you!" Naruto yells behind them.

Gamakichi quickly stabs his sword into the ground, but he is then sent flying back, causing him to land hard on his back. Naruto is falling toward the ground. I turn my gaze at what caused this and see Obito emerge from the ground. I see Naruto free falling toward the ground as Obito has targeted him. Obito is quickly approaching Naruto as his dark chakra reaches out to impale him. Sasuke moves in between them quickly and summons his Susano'o arm to shield Naruto. Obito takes this chance to lunge forward and grab Sasuke and Naruto by the foreheads, forcing them back. Black balls appear over Obito's hands as they leak through an opening in them toward their heads. Denizu summons her Susano'o after appearing behind them and have it pull them away quickly a few yards away in front of Gamakichi.

"I thought we were gonna die!" Naruto exclaims in relief.

We see Obito stretch his body out like a snake from under the rocks and his right side begins to swell up.

"What is that?" Naruto says.

"We have to take him down while he's still unable to use his body well," Minato says.

Obito holds out his swelled up right arm with his hand facing them, forming a black ball again through the hole in his palm. A bright blue explosion goes off.

"Gai look out!" I yell out as I run around him, kicking the being that was about to ram into him.

Gai then quickly turns around and does a punch killing the being in its spot.

"Thanks!" He says while breathing heavily.

I look up and see that half of Obito's swollen up body has been blown off.

"What happened?" I ask.

"He hit himself with his own attack," Gai says.

"It seems he barely has control over the ten tails." I observe.

Suddenly, Obito screams as his swelled up body continues to grow and consume him. Minato then hurls the six Raijin kunai into the ground around Obito.

I make my way to another shinobi to attempt to heal him.

"Let me help you," I say to him.

He nods and reveals his arm that has been torn off.

"I won't be able to grow your arm back, but I can seal this wound," I place my hands on his arm.

"Okay," he says while wincing.

Suddenly, smoke surrounds Obito. Once it clears, we see him standing in a different Jinchuriki state. It appears he has a cloak, two horns on his forehead, and a staff. Five black orbs are in midair behind him. I stare in surprise.

"Finally, sensei..." Obito says to Minato.

Minato collides his kunai with Obito's staff. Amazingly, the staff breaks the kunai.

"Well shit," I say as Obito swings his arm and cuts off Minato's right arm.

Suddenly, Minato appears in front of them.

"He got me, but I'm okay!" he says. "I used Flying Raijin to escape."

"Are you sure about that?" Obito calmly asks.

A black orb appears in the arm socket where Minato's arm is missing. The orb begins to shine brightly, the area covered in the light. Denizu activates the rib cage of her Susano'o to protect her, Sasuke, and Naruto. Out of nowhere, someone appears next to Minato's missing arm where the shining orb is glowing. I see that it's Tobirama; in a blink of an eye, he teleports the shining orb out of Minato's right arm socket. He then appears next to Obito with the same shining orb, but then teleports himself with Obito miles away, setting off the explosion. We watch the glowing light of the explosion as the ground trembles. Tobirama appears again near us.

"Here, bite on this," I dig in my pockets looking for my leather strap. "This wont stop the pain but it will keep you from wincing so much," I hold the strip to his mouth and he is confused.

He nods as he opens his mouth and bites the leather. I continue to heal him but my chakra is low so it's taking me longer. I check my pockets for some bandages and wrap up his arm.

"Is he healed?" Gai asks me.

"Not one hundred percent," I sigh. "My chakra is too low. You're healed enough so that you won't bleed to death," I look over to the shinobi.

"Thank you," he says as I take the leather strap back from him.

I look back at the main battle and see a black ball fly out from the smoke. As the black ball lands on the ground, Obito reveals himself inside it.

"Amaterasu!" Sasuke says as he and Naruto make a run toward Obito.

Obito merely takes his staff, spins it in front of him, and blocks the Black Flames.

"Will they be able to defeat them?" Gai says quietly

"I don't know." I say "however we can stop these things down here while they attempt him."

I see that Tobirama has imprinted a mark on Minato's shoulder. I see that Obito has his attention all on Sasuke and Naruto's combined attack. Denizu performs some hand signs and crouches to place her hands on the ground. Minato teleports in front of Naruto and Sasuke's attack to take the hit as Denizu makes flamed chakra chains emerge from the ground around Obito and subdue him. Tobirama teleports behind Obito, catching him by surprise.

"Reciprocal Round-Robin Jutsu! Flying Raijin Jutsu!" Minato and Tobirama yell.

With that, Tobirama teleports Obito in Minato's place, having Obito take the hit of Sasuke's and Naruto's attack. Naruto and Sasuke's attack send Obito flying backward, with Tobirama having a good grip on him.

"Did they get him?" Gai asks.

"That was a direct hit," I say.

I observe where Minato is standing and see the black orbs that surround Obito fly away. Tobirama appears next to Minato. The smoke and black flames disappear to reveal Obito. The right side of his torso is steaming as he's on one knee, holding himself up with the

staff.

"It didn't do anything?!" I'm surprised.

Obito then begins to float up into the air.

"It's like he's truly obtained dreamlike power," Gai says.

"Almost like he has the power of a god."

"Syrup Gun!" Gamakichi says before spitting thick, white liquid at Obito.

Obito simply uses the black orbs to shape a shield in front of him and evades the attack. Gamakichi then disappears in a puff of smoke. We continue to observe Obito up in the air. Some of the white liquid Gamakichi spit at him is sticking on to the black material around Obito. I stare at it curiously.

"Obito, I thought you wanted to become Hokage!" Minato says. "Why are you doing this?"

"You want to know why?" Obito replies. "Lecturing me now? Isn't it a bit late for that...Sensei? You're always too late when it matters most... I'm glad my teacher was a Hokage... It made it easy to give up on becoming Hokage!"

"Dynamic entry!" Gai says as he jumps up and kicks one of the beings straight in the face.

"Nice hit!" I say to Gai as I kick another being. "I wish I was better at taijutsu. It would be very helpful right about now."

"Who knows." He says as he walks up to me. "Maybe after all of this is over I can teach you taijutsu."

"That would be awesome!" I say with a smile.

We duck as another explosion happens not that far from us. I turn and see another being running towards us. I throw a paper bomb kunai at it causing a small explosion. Through the cloud of dust the being appears.

"Dynamic entry!" Gai says as he kicks the being sending it back, killing it upon impact.

"Even though you were my teacher, you didn't realize it was me..." Obito continues to look down at Minato. "That's just who you are fundamentally. How pathetic... You died a heroic Hokage, but now you're being exposed as a disgrace in front of your son."

"A Hokage is a pitiable existence...compared to what I am now," Obito continues.

By now, Naruto has formed Rasengan in his right hand.

"You have no right to make fun of a Hokage when you couldn't even become one yourself," Naruto says.

"Naruto, you–" Minato is surprised.

Tobirama teleports behind Naruto and places a hand on his back.

"Especially my dad, who actually became Hokage," Naruto continues.

In a blink of an eye, Tobirama teleports Naruto and himself above Obito. Naruto's rams his Rasengan down on Obito, a direct hit.

"How dare you put him down!" Naruto yells at Obito.

The Rasengan is actually penetrating through Obito's back.

"That worked? Why? How?" Sasuke asks.

"Even if ninjutsu is ineffective, Sage Jutsu still works!" Denizu answers. "Gamakichi used Sage Jutsu and his attack wasn't nullified."

Obito is slammed hard into the ground, sending a shockwave of smoke and dirt. We cover our faces for a bit until the debris has calmed.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

"Gai! Naruto got him!" I say as Naruto lands near the others.

"What happened?" He says to me.

"I'm not exactly sure, but Obito is injured!" I say with a smile. "I think they figured something out."

An animal-like being then comes running towards us. I throw a paper bomb kunai at it. It dodges it. It continues to run towards us.

"Leaf whirlwind!" Gai starts with a backwards high kick using his left foot, then delivers a low kick with his right causing the animal-like being to fly back.

"Sage moves will work!" Naruto says as he and Tobirama land near us.

"Sage Power?" Sasuke questions.

"The toad attacks are Sage Jutsu," Naruto continues. "They use Nature Energy. Come to think of it, when I tried to sense Ten Tails' power, it was Nature Energy itself. So you can maybe counter Nature Energy with Nature Energy. Not that I really understand it. I'm just glad I learned Sage Jutsu! Alright! Next up is Frog Kumite!"

I then turn my gaze back to Obito and see that three small fireballs form behind him over the area Naruto hit him. Obito begins to float forward and then kneels down while reaching out to the ground in front of him with his hands. Suddenly, an enormous tree root-like thing sprouts from the ground and stretches up into the air. What appear to be large plants form around it.

"There is nothing worth saving in this reality," Obito says as he floats up. "This world is already dead!"

The large plants begin to charge a ball of dark chakra at their openings. Obito suddenly shoots out black rods covered in chakra flames all throughout the battlefield. They impale into the damaged ground, surrounding the vast battlefield. The rods then form a perimeter of red chakra walls that seal us in a barrier.

"What's going on?" I uncover my face.

"I have no idea," Gai says to me.

Once the dust clears, I see that we are trapped in a giant red barrier. I look around and see the other shinobi panicking.

"End game," Obito says. "You can't save anyone!"

I look up towards Naruto and the gang and see Naruto then holds his fist up to Minato. After a moment of staring, Minato finally bumps fists with Naruto.

"Naruto, Minato is useless," Obito says. "He can't do anything. He couldn't even protect your mom... Nor his own subordinates."

He continues to be surrounded in a black sphere.

"You know what tomorrow is, don't you?" Obito continues. "It's the anniversary of Minato and Kushina's deaths. The day both of your parents died... In this world, it's over when you die. You see..."

"Oh, right, which means..." Naruto interrupts. "It's also the day I was born... So you see, it's not over. 'Cuz I exist in this world!"

A tall man with spiky orange hair arrives behind Sasuke. Sasuke stares at Naruto for a moment, but then walks forward to him. Naruto uses two chakra arms to extend out to grab Sasuke and the other man, covering them in chakra cloaks like before.

"What's going on?" Gai looks down at his arm.

I look towards him and see that he is glowing a faint orange. A small flash happens and we end up outside the red barrier with Naruto, Minato, Sasuke, and Jugo; the rest of the Allied Shinobi, covered in cloaks of chakra.

"What the…" I begin to say as I look down and see that I have the chakra cloak again.

"That Naruto," Gai smiles, looking in Naruto's direction. "He really is a powerful shinobi."

"Fourth, this is the second time you've saved all of shinobi-kind," Tobirama says.

"I've still failed...more times than that..." Minato is a bit out of breath. "So I must continue making up for it."

"What did you do?" Jugo asks.

"Dad teleported everyone outside the barrier," Naruto replies.

"Everyone? With that jutsu?" Sasuke is surprised. "How?"

"I had shared Kurama's and my chakra with everyone earlier," Naruto explains. "So if Dad and our chakra and everybody were to uh... Um..."

"Indirectly..." Minato helps him.

"Right! If we were all in direct contact with each other, it would work. So, I connected Dad's chakra with Kurama's and mine. That's all!"

"He used the principle of Shadow Clones," Tobirama says. "Even if you split up and disperse your chakra, as long as you keep even a little there without putting it out, when the original body infuses chakra again to regain control, all the original chakra bits begin

resonating and link together."

"In short, by joining his chakra with the Fourth's," Denizu says. "Naruto linked the Fourth to the rest of his chakra residing in everyone else. Right, Naruto?"

"Huh? Is that what I did?" Naruto looks clueless.

"Never mind..." Tobirama and Denizu say.

"Old Man Second," Naruto says. "You sure know a lot about my Shadow Clones too!"

"I created that jutsu!" Tobirama exclaims comically. "It's my Shadow Clone Jutsu!"


	11. Chapter 11

_**SO because dme1994 decided to do her time skip here i am doing the same. She has an OC character that has all types of abilities that i am not about to make up lol. **_

_**Any who this now takes place after the war and everything has calmed and Kakashi becomes the 6th hokage. **_

**Chapter 11**

It's been about two weeks after the war and Tsunade has assigned me and Sakura to different wards of the hospital to help with the shinobi still affected by the war.

"I will be back in the morning, Katoaka," I walk towards the door.

"Thank you, Kyoto-san," she says to me with a small smile.

I walk out the door and make my way to the next room. I give a small knock and then enter. I look at the bed and see Gai laying there with both of his legs wrapped up in bandages. He sees me and tries to sit up a bit.

"Take it easy, Gai," I walk over to him and help him sit up.

"I feel so weak," he says with sadness. "Do you think I'll be able to walk again?"

I remove the blanket from his legs and begin to send chakra into them. We both stare at the light green glow trying to heal him. I concentrate mostly on his right leg where most of his bones were shattered.

"You're showing promise," I say to him with a small smile. "I will keep coming back a couple times a day to help heal you. You're also getting closer to possibly starting physical therapy. Your bones are starting to come together. We can only speed the process so much."

"You think so?" Gai says with a smile. "I will put my all into the physical therapy!"

I can't help but smile when he gives a thumbs up and with a big grin.

"I will have Tsunade come and see if she can do anything," I keep sending chakra into his leg. "She might know a trick to speed you up or even give you the clear."

He shuffles in the bed, almost nervous about something.

"You alright there Gai?"

"Umm… Mizuki..." He begins to say.

"Gai-sensei!" Someone yells as they enter the room. "Have you asked her yet?"

I look up and see a young man in a green jumpsuit similar to Gai's and bushy eyebrows. He stops in his tracks when he sees me.

"Lee!" Gai says with a blush as he looks from Lee to me.

I give them a questioning look.

"Oh!" Lee says when he sees me. "Hello, Mizuki-sensei!"

"Sensei?" I say with confusion.

"Yes," he says nervously. "Unless you prefer Mizuki-san?"

"Either is fine," I say with a small smile. "Whatever you are comfortable with."

"Yes, Mizuki-sensei!" Lee says. "My name is Rock Lee. I am Gai-sensei's Student."

"Nice to meet you Lee."

"What are you doing here Lee…" Gai says eyeing him.

"I just came to check on you," he walks over to Gai.

I go back to healing Gai's leg. I keep noticing that Lee kept looking back from Gai to me, but I ignore it.

"So Mizuki-Sensei."

"Yes, Lee?"

"When do you think Gai-Sensei will be able to start walking?"

"I am not sure yet," I finish up. "I am going to go speak with Tsunade and see if she can come see Gai later today."

"That sounds like good news!" He says excitedly "Don't you think, Gai-sensei!"

"It does!" He says with a thumbs up. "Once I am given the okay I will be walking in no time!"

When I look back at them I see them both with wide eyes and tears running down their cheeks.

"I am so proud of you Gai-sensei!" Lee says while crying.

"I can't wait to get better Lee!" Gai says

I stand there not sure of what is going on. All of a sudden Gai slaps Lee across the face.

"Enough crying Lee!" Gai says sternly

Lee grabs his face.

"We need to be strong so I can heal!" Gai says motivationally.

"Yes, Gai-sensei!" Lee says while he holds up a fist.

"Alright, Gai," I say with a small chuckle. "I am going to go meet with Tsunade and I will see you later today with some news."

"Thank you, Mizuki," Gai says with a smile.

"I can't believe you didn't ask," I hear Lee say as I close the door and leave.

I begin to walk down the hall towards Tsunade's office.

"Mizuki!" I hear a familiar voice say behind me.

I turn around and see Sakura walking towards me with a big smile.

"Hey, Sakura," I wait for her to catch up.

"How are your patients?" She asks me.

"They're doing great. I just finished up with Gai."

"How is Gai-sensei doing? I haven't had a chance to visit him with all of my patients."

"He is doing a lot better actually. I'm on my way to Tsunade now so she can go check on him and give him the okay to start physical therapy."

"You think he is ready?"

"I believe in the next day or two he will be ready," I say as we continue to walk towards the office. "He is very strong willed. So I believe he is ready."

"Gai-sensei has a very strong will," she says with a smile. "I have some free time, do you mind if I tag along?"

"No, not at all. You are more than welcome to."

We make it to Tsunade's office and I do a small knock.

"Enter," We hear her say from the other side of the door.

We walk into her office.

"Ah Mizuki and Sakura," she says with a small smile. "Here to distract me from my work?"

"We could if you need a distraction," Sakura says

"I wish," she says with a sigh. "So what brings you two here?"

"Well I was hoping if you have time today you can evaluate Gai Might?" I say to her. "I feel he is getting close to being able to start physical therapy and was hoping you can help give the final say."

"He was in pretty bad condition after the war," Tsunade says with concern. "Are you sure he is ready?"

"This morning I managed to get the last of the bones in his legs to join." I say with confidence. "There are still a few left that I would like you to use your expertise to heal. Now I feel we need to concentrate on his muscles with physical therapy before they become weak."

"Very well," she says while standing up. "It is noon now, so I will check on him after lunch. I will see you in his room in an hour."

"Yes, Lady Tsunade," I smile.

Sakura and I leave her office and head towards the cafeteria. We make it there and grab some food. I grab some sushi, rice balls, and water and make our way to a table.

"You are coming along with Tsunade and I to check on Gai, yes?" I ask Sakura.

"I would love to come by and check on him," she says.

"Can I ask you something?"

"What is it?"

"I feel Gai has been acting weird around me lately…" I take another bite of my rice ball.

"What makes you say that?" She looks more intrigued.

"He's been more nervous and almost stuttering."

"Really?" she says with a cheesy smile.

"Uh huh and then when I was treating him this morning, Lee stopped by. However, when Lee came in, he asked Gai 'if he asked me yet.' I didn't push the subject because Gai got super tense and Lee stopped right in his tracks when he saw me."

"Oh my goodness!" Sakura says with excitement. "You know what I think!"

"What?" I take a sip of my water

"I think Gai-sensei is going to ask you out!"

"What?!" I almost spit out my water. "That is ridiculous. What makes you think that?"

"Think about it, Mizuki!" she says with a giant smile. "He is getting nervous around you, and when Lee came in, he asked if Gai-sensei asked you the question, and Gai-sensei got even more nervous! He likes you!"

"I highly doubt that," I say while eating my sushi.

"I think Gai-sensei likes you," she says still with a cheesy smile. "Plus during the war, he stood by your side protecting you the majority of the time, right?"

"That is not because he liked me."

"Maybe he developed some sort of feelings for you during the war. Plus you have been the one healing him and seeing him during his weakest state!"

"So you're saying he developed a crush on me because I am healing him?"

"No…" she thinks for a moment. "How do you interact with him? Or how do you see him?"

She took me back for a moment. I think about her question as I take a sip of my water.

"Ummm… I see him as a very determined man who will put himself in danger if it means protecting others. He can be loud and obnoxious, though he is very kind and quiet when you catch him one on one. He can also be very supportive and motivational."

"If he asks you out, you should say yes," Sakura says without missing a beat. "I think you secretly like him too, and you two would make a cute couple."

"So you are shipping us now?"

"Oh, most definitely."

I look at the time and see almost an hour has passed.

"Well, we shall continue this conversation another time because it is almost time to meet Tsunade," I say.

"I don't think I will be able to keep a straight face," Sakura says with a big cheesy grin as we clean up our trays.

"You better keep a straight face," I say teasingly.

Sakura and I walk towards Gai's room to meet up with Tsunade. Everytime I look at Sakura, she has a giant grin on her face.

"Can you not?" I say to her.

"How can I not?" She says. "I am just thinking that you two would just be adorable."

I roll my eyes.

"I am trying to think of how he is going to ask you. Or when he is going to ask you," Sakura wonders.

"Well, I doubt he is going to ask with you and Tsunade in the room," I say as we get closer.

"Are you going to help him with physical therapy?"

"Yes. So I can monitor his progress."

"Maybe he will ask you during that?!"

"Alright Sakura. No more fan girling," I say with a chuckle. "We are here."

She gives a small sigh as I knock on the door and enter the room. I see Gai propped up on his bed with Tsunade at his side checking over his legs.

"Hello, Mizuki and Sakura," Gai says with a warm smile.

"Hi, Gai-sensei," Sakura says with a smile as she approaches the bed. "How are you feeling?"

"I have had better days," he says with a sigh. "But Mizuki has been keeping me in top shape, so I know I will be better soon."

I see Sakura give me a smirk.

"So what do you think, Tsunade?" I say trying to avoid eye contact with Sakura.

"You are right, Mizuki," she says. "He is ready for physical therapy starting tomorrow. I healed the last little fragments of his legs."

"That's great news," Sakura says.

"However," Tsunade looks at Gai. "I must warn you. Gai, you can never open the Eight Gates again. Anything past the 5th gate, you will end up dead. You have to promise you will never enter them, unless you are ready to die. Are we understood?" Tsunade firmly states.

"I understand, Lady Tsunade," He says seriously.

"You are very lucky that you are not bound to a wheelchair," she looks at him. "Next time you will not be so lucky."

"I do consider myself lucky," he says.

"Also, please calm down with your training. At least until Mizuki or I give you the okay to go all out with your usual training."

He looks at Tsunade and I and gives a small nod.

"I will try and limit my training," Gai nods.

"Good. Starting tomorrow you will begin physical therapy," Tsunade begins to walk out of the room. "Sakura, I have some things to discuss with you if you may come along."

"Yes, Lady Tsunade," Sakura follows.

Before Sakura leaves the room, she turns back and gives me a small grin.

"Are you going to be needing anything before I leave for the day?" I say to Gai as I close his blinds.

"Um, actually, yes," he says nervously.

"What is it?"

"Ummm."

I look over to him and he is avoiding eye contact.

"Gai?" I walk over to him and sit on the edge of the bed and place my hand on his leg. "What's wrong?"

"Once I can walk," he looks up to me. "Will you go on a date with me?"

My eyes widen in surprise upon hearing those words.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

"Gai?" I walk over to him and sit on the edge of the bed and place my hand on his leg. "What's wrong?"

"Once I can walk," he looks up at me. "Will you go on a date with me?"

I sit back surprised by what he's just said.

"It's okay if you don't want to," he starts stammering.

"Yes."

"I mean I know… wait what?"

"Yes I will go on a date with you," I say with a smile.

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

He has this huge grin on his face. He then reaches towards me and pulls me into a hug.

"Thank you for giving me a chance," he says.

"Let's get you walking first," I say with a sweat drop.

I stand up and head towards the door.

"I will be here first thing tomorrow morning. So be ready for some therapy, okay?" I turn to him.

"You got it, Mizuki!" He says with a big grin.

It's the next morning, and I'm walking through the village on my way to the hospital when I spot a familiar pink-haired girl.

"Sakura!" I yell out as I run towards her.

"Mizuki!" She waves as she waits for me to catch up.

"You were right."

"About?"

"What we were talking about yesterday…"

I look at her and her face changes from confusion to glee.

"Gai-sensei asked you out!?" She says with a giant smile.

"That he did. Right after you and Tsunade left," I reply.

"I knew it!"

"Alright, Sakura, you can calm down now," I say with a chuckle.

"I'm so excited for you two."

"It's just a date Sakura," We continue to head to the hospital. "Nothing is set in stone just yet. Plus, he needs to concentrate on getting better."

"Well now he has a reason to get better," she says with a wink.

"Look, we are here," I say as we make it to the hospital. "I will be seeing you later."

"Have fun today!" She says "But don't let it be too much fun!"

I shake my head as I make my way into the building. I walk down the many halls, grab a wheelchair and make my way towards Gai's room. I give a small knock then enter.

"Good morning, Gai," I enter the room and bring the wheelchair up to his bed.

"Good morning, Mizuki," he says while propping himself up on the bed.

"Are you ready?"

"I was born ready! With the power of youth I will be walking again in no time!"

"Very well then," I smile. "Let's get you in this chair."

I help Gai get into the wheelchair and take him down to the Inpatient Rehabilitation Clinic to begin his first session.

It has been about a week since Gai started his physical therapy and today is the day for our date. I am going through the different stores doing some last minute shopping before our date tonight.

"So you were just never going to tell me," a voice says behind me.

I jump up from fright. I turn around and see Denizu eyeing me while leaning on the wall.

"Denizu! My gosh, I need to give you a bell," I say. "And what are you talking about?"

"I thought we were friends," she pouts.

"We are friends. Now can you please tell me what this is about?"

"Why did I have to find out through Kakashi that you and Gai are going on a date!" She continues dramatically. "I thought you loved me."

"Oh my goodness, you and Sakura are something else…" I facepalm. "It's one date, Denizu. Plus, I hardly see you!"

"I guess you have a point there," she then gives me a grin. "So, where is he taking you?"

"We are going to a restaurant later tonight. I'm doing some last minute shopping now."

"Oh! What restaurant?"

"That I am not telling you," I chuckle as I continue to browse the store. "With my luck, you and Sakura are going to be a table over and be all giggly and embarrassing me."

"I am not going to deny that."

"Exactly. I'm not gonna have you embarrass me."

I keep going through the store and Denizu is sulking behind me.

"We can still hang out for a bit and get a quick bite before I go home and get ready," I propose.

"I would love to do that!" She replies.

Denizu and I continue to shop around going through all the different little shops.

"Where would you like to eat?" I hear my stomach rumble.

"How about ramen?" Denizu suggests.

"That sounds like a good idea."

We make our way to Ichiraku Ramen and sit on the little stools.

"What can I get for you two?" Teuchi asks.

"I would like the Miso Chashu Pork please," I say.

"I would like today's special," Denizu says with a grin. "Very well," he then writes our orders and goes to the back.

"So…" Denizu begins to say as she turns in her stool to look at me.

"Hmm?"

"You and Gai," she gives me a smirk.

"Yes?"

"How did that come about?"

"He asked me," I say nonchalantly as I take a sip of my water.

"Details!"

"Here you two are," Teuchi places the ramen in front of us.

"Thank you," we both say to him.

"He asked me right after Tsunade gave him the okay to start physical therapy," I begin to eat some of my ramen.

"Was it unexpected?"

"To me it was, but when I told Sakura how he was acting, she guessed he was going to ask me out immediately."

"I can't believe it," she eats some ramen. "I think you two are good for each other."

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, Gai can be loud and wild and always training and hurting himself, while you are calm, patient, and can heal people!" She gives me a giant grin. "You two are good opposites to each other. Kinda like how Kakashi and I are."

"True, but it is the first date, so nothing is set in stone just yet."

"I still have my hopes up."

Denizu and I continue our meals then go our separate ways after finishing. I head home and get ready for the date tonight. I head over to the restaurant to meet Gai.

"Hello, how many today?" the host asks me.

"I'm not sure if he is here yet," I say. "I am meeting Gai Might."

"Oh, he is here!" she smiles. "Please follow me."

I follow her to a booth that has a set of crutches leaning on it. As I look past the booth, glancing around the restaurant, I make eye contact with a familiar pair of eyes.

"Oh no…" I say quietly to myself as I notice a drunk Denizu in a booth in the back with Kakashi.

Denizu notices me and gives me a giant drunk smirk.

"Thank you," I say to the host as I quickly sit down avoiding more eye contact with Denizu.

"Hello, Mizuki," Gai says nervously.

"Hey, Gai," I smile.

"I would have stood up but…" He begins to say with a sweat drop.

"Oh, it is fine," I smile. "Nice to see the therapy is working."

"That's because I have a wonderful doctor."

I smile and blush at his comment.

"Are you two ready to order?" The server asks us.

"I haven't had a chance to look at the menu!" I open it. "May I have a water to start."

"Of course, for you sir?"

"I will also have water, and if we can please have a bottle of your finest sake."

"Right away, sir," she writes down our orders and walks away.

"Trying to get me drunk, huh?"

"Uh no!" he starts stuttering "I just thought..."

"I am kidding, Gai," I chuckle. "So this is my first time here. What do you recommend?"

"Well, their sushi is really good," he says while opening the menu. "Doesn't matter which one you get. They are all amazing. My personal favorite is the kappa-maki but the tekka-maki is good too."

The server comes back and sets our waters and the sake down on the table.

"Are you two ready to order?" She asks.

"I'm ready. Are you ready, Mizuki?" Gai asks.

"Yes I am," I say

"Ladies first," Gai smiles.

"I would like the tekka-maki please."

"Anything else to drink?" she asks.

"No, water and sake are fine with me," I hand her the menu.

"And for you sir?"

"I would like the kappa-maki, and I'm fine with sake and water," Gai hands her the menu.

"Not a problem," she then walks away to put our orders in.

Gai pours the sake into the two small glasses and hands me one.

"For the lady," he says.

"Why, thank you," I smile.

I take a sip of the sake.

"Oh this is delicious," I say.

"This is really good," he smiles. "So tell me more about yourself."

"What would you like to know?"

"The Mizuki before the war."

"Well, there really isn't anything special about that Mizuki," I sigh. "She's just a small girl from a small village in the middle of nowhere."

"Just a small girl from a small village that decided to join a war?" he questions. "There has to be more to that."

"Well, I was one of the only doctors in that village. My mother was a doctor before me and I was her apprentice. When she was killed, I took on my own apprentice. Since the village was so small, we were always attacked by rogue ninja, so it was a rule to always have a doctor and an apprentice at all times."

"That sounds intense," he's very intrigued. "I am sorry about your mother."

"It's alright. She died doing what she knew best," I say in thought. "She was protecting a kid from a rogue ninja and stood in the line of fire. She broke the rule of a medical nin by getting in the front lines, but she stood by her rule of a mother by protecting the kid. That kid ended up being my apprentice for many years before I chose to leave the village to join the Leaf. I wanted and still want to help people, and I felt assisting in the war even if risking my life to help would help me achieve that."

"I know I never met your mother and never will, but I am sure that if I had, you would be a lot like her," he smiles. "I'm also sure she would be very proud of you."

"Thank you, Gai," I smile.

"Alright, here is the kappa-maki," the host hands the food to Gai.

"Thank you," he says.  
"And the tekki-maki."

"Thank you," I say.

"Anything else I can get for you two?" she asks.

"No, we are fine thank you," Gai says.

We both take a couple of minutes and eat our food and drink some sake.

"So what about you?" I take another sip of my sake. "Tell me about you."

"Well, I am unable to use ninjutsu and genjutsu, so I decided to master taijutsu," he says before taking a bite of his food. "I discovered that Lee is the same way, so I decided to take him under my wing."

"That Lee is a character," I smile. "He is adorable and he continues to throw me off when he calls me sensei."

"Yeah, Lee is a good kid," he chuckles while he drinks some sake. "He is like a son to me. I taught him everything I know and he continues to surprise me."

"He is lucky to have a role model like you."

"And your apprentice was lucky to have a role model like you."

He then holds up his glass of sake for a toast.

"To us as role models?"

"To us as role models," I chuckle as I tap his glass.

We sit in silence for a little bit as we continue to munch on our food.

"I'm glad you said yes," Gai says breaking the silence.

"I'm glad you asked me," I give him a smile.

It is midday and about a month since the war. I have been working tirelessly with Tsunade and Sakura in the hospital in the final preparations for Naruto's prosthetic arm.

"How's the arm coming along?" I ask Tsunade.

"We are making progress," she says while reading the data for the cells.

"It is great that we don't need to use Hashirama's cells," Sakura says

Tsunade grabs another sample of the white zetsu cells and brings them over to the computer to analyze them.

"You are correct, Sakura," Tsunade says while looking at the computer.

"What are you thinking, Tsunade?" I say walking over.

"I don't think we will need to put Hashirama's cells into Naruto," She says with a sigh. "We should be able to use Naruto's own cells and have them regenerate."

"We are able to regenerate Naruto's cells the same way the White Zetsu have," I say. "Tomorrow is his surgery," I bring over Naruto's cells to the computer.

"And I am 100 percent certain the surgery will be a success," Tsunade says grabs his cells from me.

She takes the cells from me and adds some of the White Zetsu's cells to it and we watch it regenerate.

"Medical-ninjutsu will never cease to amaze me!" I watch the cells react to each other.

"It is amazing," Sakura says with the same amazement.

"But this is a task for tomorrow," Tsunade stands up, "I need to go back to transitioning Kakashi to being the Hokage. So I want you two to stay in the hospital and heal up some patients then take the rest of the day off."

"Yes, Lady Tsunade," Sakura and I say to her.

Tsunade leaves the room. Sakura and I begin to clean up and get all the paperwork together before we head off to our other patients. Soon we hear a knock on the door and a medical nin walks in.

"Excuse me, Kyoto-san?" the medical nin says.

"Yes?" I turn towards her.

"You have a patient in the other room who is insisting on seeing you and doesn't want to see any of our other medical nins," she says shyly.

"Is it Gai?" I ask with a sigh.

"Yes," she nods.

"I swear, that man," I say with a small chuckle. "You can tell him that I will be right over."

She gives me another nod and scurries out of the room. I turn towards Sakura and she is looking at me with a giant smile.

"Gai-sensei, huh?" Sakura says cheesily.

"Yes…"

"Any new dates I should know about?" she says teasingly.

"I'm positive I told you the recent one already."

"You have, but I like the story," she says while sitting in the chair next to me. "You get so cheesy and it's fun girl time with us."

I sigh as I recount the story to tell her. We both start giggling as I tell her a different date he took me on.

"I have to thank him though, it was him who kept saving me from almost getting killed multiple times," I say. "Now I have to keep him grounded and keep him from hurting himself while he is in recovery."

"Oh that is definitely going to be a challenge," she says with a sweat drop. "I have never known Gai-sensei to not exercise or workout."

"And that is my challenge being his physical therapist is a struggle," I chuckle. "Well, I should be off to go see what he needs."

"Good luck Mizuki!"

"I will need it!"

With that I make way to Gai's hospital room. When I walk in, I see Gai sitting on the bed looking out the window.

"You insisted on seeing me?" I say while leaning on the wall.

"Ah Mizuki!" He says with a giant smile as he tries to stand up.

"Oh! Careful there!" I run over to help him keep his balance.

He takes advantage and pulls me into a huge bear hug.

"Gai, I can't breathe…" I struggle to say.

"Sorry," he says as he loosens his grip.

"So what do you want?"

"I wanted to show you my new toy."

"New toy?"

He then limps over to the side of the bed and pulls out these two crutches that are all green with orange accents.

"New crutches?" I smile.

"You like them?" he says as he uses them to walk over to me. "I figured since I'm doing better I should treat myself to some new ones!"

"Yes, I like them," I give him a peck on the lips.

He blushes a bit and gives me a huge grin.

"Let's go get some ramen," I walk towards the door. "I'm pretty much finished up here at the hospital."

"Sounds like a date!" Gai is excited.

We walk outside and make our way to Ichiraku Ramen. While on the way there, a bird flies towards us with an envelope in its beak.

"What's this?" I grab the envelope from the bird.

"Well open it," Gai peeks over my shoulder.

"To Gai and Mizuki," the front of the envelope reads. I open the envelope and read, "You are cordially invited to the wedding of Denizu Uchiha and Lord Sixth Kakashi Hatake. November 26…"

"Wait, what?!" Gai grabs the envelope from me rereading what I just read. "MY RIVAL IS GETTING MARRIED!"

"I can't believe it!" I say excitedly "They're getting married!"

"I must go find them!"

"Wait, Gai! You can't go running in your condition!"

He begins to use his crutches and runs limping through the village in search of Kakashi. I try my best to keep up with him, but even in his condition, he is too fast for me.

"Gai, slow down!" I yell as I try to keep up.

"KAKASHIIIIIII!" Gai yells when he sees Kakashi and Denizu in the distance.

Gai comes limping through the crowd of villagers on crutches, a trail of dirt cloud behind him.

"Kakashi! My eternal rival!" Gai holds a fist up in the air. "Is to be wed! Such an event!"

"No need to exaggerate the hype," Kakashi has a sweat drop.

"How can I not? My best friend is going to get married! This is something to be festive about!"

"Sorry, Gai took off as soon as I showed him the invitation," I say out of breath. "He took off looking for you guys. I couldn't keep up. He's fast, even with crutches!"

"No worries. We kinda expected that," Denizu says with a chuckle.

"We must think of wedding gifts!" Gai turns to me. "We only have a month to find the perfect gifts!"

"We don't ask for much," Kakashi rubs the back of his head.

"Yeah, we don't want everyone to feel pressured," Denizu says.

"Nonsense! My eternal rival is going to get married! Such an important milestone in his life! I shall see to it that he and his bride-to-be receive the best gift!"

"All right, that's enough," I say as I grab him by the ear and pulls him away. "Let's give them time and space. I'm sure they're busy preparing for the wedding."

"I shall not disappoint yooouuu!" Gai shouts as we disappear into the distance.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

"Woohoo! Congratulations, Denizu-sensei!" Sakura claps.

"Let's get this party going!" Kurenai adds. "But no saké for you girls! You're too young to drink."

Kurenai shakes a finger at the table of underage ladies: Sakura, Ino, Hinata, Ten Ten. The women of age at the party are myself, Kurenai, Denizu, Lady Tsunade, and Shizune. Kurenai and Sakura made reservations at this restaurant for a private party.

"Maybe next time, when one of you girls gets married next!" Lady Tsunade holds a saké bottle.

"All right!" Denizu takes a shot of saké. "Let's get this party going!"

"So how's it feel, Denizu?" I ask. "Your single days are about to be over!"

"Hm?" Denizu takes another shot of saké. "Well, not that I was a heartbreaker... My heart was really only set on Kakashi."

"Wow! Even after all these years!" Ten Ten exclaims.

"How romantic!" Ino blushes.

"It's about damn time Kakashi settles down!" Kurenai says after taking a shot. "Though I'm sure you guys woulda married sooner if you could have."

"There would've been little Uchiha running around by now!" Tsunade jokes.

"Have you guys talked about how many kids you want to have?" Sakura asks.

"We wanna have one for sure," Denizu answers after taking a strip of barbecued pork.

"Boy or girl?" Ino asks.

"As long as the baby is born healthy and well, gender doesn't matter."

"I'll drink to that!" Kurenai holds up a shot.

The ladies and I are having a great time. Lady Tsunade is the first one to get drunk, to nobody's surprise. I am following close behind and am super tipsy. The food is delicious and we continue our conversation until we hear a commotion in the private room next to us.

"What's that?" Ten Ten asks.

"Bunch of idiots who are making too much noise!" Tsunade grunts.

"Whoa! Hey! Hey!" We hear male voices shouting.

"That sounds like..." Hinata says.

"Is that…" I say hearing a familiar voice.

Crash! Gai comes bursting through the wooden sliding wall.

"Now look at what you've done!" Kiba says.

"Huh?!" Sakura looks through the hole. "What are you guys doing here?!"

"I was gonna ask you the same question!" Naruto says.

"I thought I told you not to come to this restaurant! The ladies claimed it!"

"You gave me the name of a restaurant, and that's where I went!"

"I gave you the name of the restaurant NOT to go to! Weren't you paying attention?!"

"Oh..." Naruto has an embarrassed smile and sweat drop as he rubs the back of his head.

"Great! What are we supposed to do now?!" Sakura puts her hands on her hips.

Gai grunts and then throws up in the corner of the private room. Everyone groans and looks away.

"Gai, are you okay?" I drunkenly walk over. "What did you all do to him?"

"He was drinking on an empty stomach," Sai says.

I grab a cup of water and hand it to him and I rub his back.

"Bring me some more water and some bread," I say.

"Here you go," Shikamaru hands me what I ask for.

"Gai, munch on this." I hand him the bread. "Eat this and it should help you feel better."

He looks up weakly at me still tipsy and bites the bread that I am holding.

"Mizuki-sensei, is Gai-sensei going to be okay?" Lee walks over.

"He will be fine," I hand him a piece of bread. "Can you be a sport and take him to the bathroom to get cleaned up? Have him eat this."

"No problem, Mizuki-sensei!" Lee helps Gai stand and takes him to the bathroom.

I go and sit next to Tsunade and watch Naruto and Sakura bicker with each other. Tsunade looks over to me and hands me the sake bottle.

"To Denizu and Kakshi," she toasts.

"To Denizu and Kakashi," I hiccup as I take a swig of the sake.

Tsunade and I continue to drink, getting more and more drunk as the night goes on.

"Are you okay, Mizuki?" Sakura asks.

"Who me?" I say. "Never better."

I hold out a sake cup to her, slowly swaying side to side.

"Here, you deserve at least one drink in honor of Denizu's big day and all the hard work you have done," I say.

"Are you sure?" she says nervously as she looks at Tsunade.

"She is drunk, Sakura," I hiccup. "She won't notice."

"What's going on here?" Gai stumbles over.

"Oh, Gai, how are you feeling?" I pat the spot next to me for him to sit down.

"Much better," he sits next to me.

"Did you eat some food?" Sakura asks him.

"Yes, I just finished a plate and am feeling better to start getting another drink!" He says with a grin.

"Just in time then!" I smile. "Where is Lee? He should join us?"

"Lee!" Gai yells out.

"Yes, Gai-sensei!" Lee walks over.

"Lee sit!" I hold out a glass of sake. "I am allowing one cup of sake to the both of you!"

"Are you sure, Mizuki-sensei?" Lee asks me.

"I am not going to force you," I take another swig. "And I am not allowing you to have more than one."

"Very well then!" Lee holds his cup.

"To Kakashi and Denizu!" I say holding up my cup.

"To Kakashi and Denizu!" Sakrua, Gai, and Lee say as we all take a swig.

"Look at their faces," I say to Gai as they scrunch up their faces from the sake.

"Those two do not look like they are going to be drinkers," he says with a chuckle.

"Here, drink some water," I hand them water. "It will help wash down the sake."

"Thank you," they take the water.

It is late in the night. Gai and I are drunk and stumbling. Tsunade is passed out, Denizu and Kakashi are missing, Naruto is looking for them, and most of the others left.

"I will attempt to get Gai home if you got Tsunade?" I tell Sakura with a giant grin and hiccuping.

"Are you sure you two will be okay?" she asks concerned.

"Don't be ridiculous," Gai almost falls over.

"We will be fine," I giggle as I hold on to him to keep us from falling.

"Alright you two," she walks over to Tsunade. "Make it home safely."

"We will!" Gai says as we stumble out of the restaurant.

Gai and I stumble through the village on the way back to his apartment giggling the entire time. I look up and see that it is a full moon.

"Gai, look," I look up.

"Hmm?" He also looks up.

"Look how pretty the moon is."

"Not as pretty as you," he tries to lean into a kiss.

"Oh no you don't," I hold my finger to his lips. "You are not getting a kiss till you brush your teeth."

"Aww, why?" he says with a pout.

"You puked at the restaurant," I chuckle. "Come on, let's keep walking."

"That's fair," he says with a hiccup still pouting.

We continue on stumbling through the village. We somehow make our way to the house, and Gai drops the keys when trying to open the door.

"Oh, we're _drunk_ drunk," I giggle.

"Oh shush," he says laughing as he grabs the keys and opens the door.

We get inside and I take off my sandals and head towards my room and change into my pajamas. I can hear Gai go into the bathroom and the sink starts running. I crawl into my bed and begin to fade. Soon I feel the bed move.

"Huh?" I say quietly and turn to look.

I see Gai crawl into the bed.

"Gai, this isn't your room," I say sleepily.

Gai just grunts as he puts his arms around me and pulls me close.

"Fine," I sigh.

He grunts again as he snuggles against me and soon we both fall asleep.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

I wake up to light shining on my face. I groan and stretch when I feel a pair of arms pull me closer. I roll over, smile and snuggle into Gai's chest.

"Good morning, honey," he says while kissing my forehead.

"Good morning," I say.

"How was your sleep?"

"Peaceful and nice," I snuggle closer into his chest. "You?"

"It was nice," he smiles. "I haven't slept that deep in a while."

"Is that so?"

"I guess it means I should have had you next to me much sooner."

I chuckle as we lay in bed for a couple more minutes.

"We gotta get ready for the wedding," I groan.

"We can stay for a couple more minutes," he pulls me closer.

"But then we will never get up."

"Probably not."

I groan as I get up. Gai pulls me back towards him and gives me a kiss.

"You're making it very hard for me to go get ready," I pout.

"That's my goal," he grins.

I chuckle as I get up and head towards the bathroom. I wash up then head to my room to start getting ready. Gai hops in the shower after me. I put my dark green dress with white flowers on it. I walk out of my room the same time Gai walks out of his and he is sporting a dark green suit with a straight collar and coiled buttons down the front.

He stops in his tracks and stares at me in awe.

"You alright there, Gai," I ask.

"You look stunning," he walks up to me.

"You don't look to bad yourself," I blush.

He leans in and gives me a kiss.

"We should start going before we are late," he walks towards the door. "Are you coming?"

"Yes, I am coming," I chuckle as I follow him.

We put our sandals on and make our way towards the venue. We make our way out of the small building and into the open terrace. Several rows are aligned with an aisle in the middle, seating about 20 guests. I can see guests come from all over, even the other Kage who are seated at the front. The white chairs are adorned with beautiful flowers.

"This is gorgeous," I say as I look around.

"It is very beautiful," Gai says as we make our way to our seats.

Music begins to play and everyone quiets down. I look back and I see Kurenai walking in front of Denizu, Ino walks to her right, and Sakura to her left, each holding a red parasol umbrella to conceal her. Once Kurenai reaches the beginning of the aisle, all the guests stand from their white chairs. Kurenai, Sakura, and Ino move aside to reveal her. Gasps echo and eyes stare at her in awe. All the guests bow as she walks by. Kakashi offers his hand to help her on to the altar and she takes it. She and Kakashi turn to the lead priest who bows and they return it, as well as all the guests. The guests sit back in their seats and the ceremony begins.

The leading priest offers a prayer. Through the prayer, the priest asks for eternal blessings on behalf of Kakashi and Denizu. The priest's assistant rings the ceremonial bell. It is time for Kakashi and Denizu to recite their wedding oaths.

Kakashi turns to Denizu and begins:

"I, Kakashi Hatake, marry this woman;

No matter the health situation,

I will love this woman,

I will respect this woman,

I will console this woman,

I will be loyal to this woman,

I will be faithful to this woman,

To death and beyond."

Denizu turns to Kakashi and begin her oath:

"I, Denizu Uchiha, marry this man;

No matter the health situation,

I will love this man,

I will respect this man,

I will console this man,

I will be loyal to this man,

I will be faithful to this man,

To death and beyond."

The priest's assistant rings the ceremonial bell again.

"From here on out, this man and woman become husband and wife," the lead priest holds his arms out. "The groom may now kiss the bride!"

Kakashi and Denizu lean in toward each other. Everyone awaits, eager to see if Kakashi will actually reveal his face as he reaches for his mask. Naruto and Sakura gulp as beads of sweat roll down the side of their heads, leaning forward more and more. Just as Kakashi is about to pull his mask down for the kiss, white and red smoke pellets set off in front of them, obscuring everyone's view of the kiss. Naruto and Sakura drop their jaws in disappointment. Kurenai laughs at their reaction, along with the rest of the guests, all not surprised Kakashi would pull off something like this. The smoke fades and Kakashi and Denizu are standing together, his arm wrapped around her waist.

"They join union as Kakashi Uchiha and Denizu Uchiha!" The lead priest announces.

The crowd stands and cheers wildly. White and red confetti burst in the air along with flower petals. Kakashi and Denizu wave their hands at the crowd, smiling happily.

"My rival!" Gai says with tears in his eyes. "He is finally married to the love of his life."


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

"You wanted to see me?" I ask Tsunade as I walk into the office.

"Ah, Mizuki, yes I did," she says "What are you doing today?"

"Uh not much," I say nervously. "I was probably going to help out at the hospital."

"Change of plans. We're going to the training field," she packs away her paperwork.

"Eh?"

"Sakura told me about your ability to do the body pathway derangement and that you need to perfect it."

I stand there in shock.

"And since Kakashi is taking over as Hokage I have some free time," she smiles as she looks up at me. "So I have to make sure all of my students are in tip top shape, and that means you mastering this technique."

"Alright!" I say with determination.

"Very well," she smiles. "I shall see you at the training ground after noon. Make sure you are fed and ready because I am not going easy on you."

"Not a problem!"

With that, I walk out of the office and head home to prepare some lunch.

"That smells good!" Gai walks into the kitchen.

"I hope so," I smile. "I'm trying to make a quick meal."

"Got some big plans today?" He grabs a fork and picks at the rice I'm cooking.

"Can you not!" I shoo him away. "Tsunade is training me today."

"Training?"

"Yeah, Sakura told her that I know the beginning stages to the body pathway derangement technique, and now Tsunade wants to take me as her official student."

"Being trained by one of the legendary Sannin. That is an accomplishment."

"It is very exciting, but I am also super nervous. I mean you had to protect me during most of the war."

"You held your own pretty well," he grabs some bowls and plates from the cupboard. "You are also a quick learner."

"I hope so. I'm just very nervous."

"I have an idea!"

"What's that?"

"How about I train you too!"

"What?"

"Think about it," he gives me a giant grin. "Imagine combining the body pathway derangement technique with taijutsu! You already know how to dodge and do basic taijutsu moves! You will be able to assist on higher rank missions if you were to master taijutsu!"

I can see him envisioning it now.

"Let me do one training at a time," I say with a sweat drop. "Let me survive Tsunade, then you and I can talk about that."

"I will start planning some training exercises for you!"

He begins to help me set up the table and we sit to eat.

"Hmmm…." he takes a bite of the rice. "We could start with 100 laps around the village as a warm up."

"How about no," I chuckle." You are not about to put me through one of your crazy training regiments."

"I will come up with the perfect exercise for you!"

"Alright."

We continue eating and I begin cleaning up.

"Wish me luck today!" I say.

"Good luck Mizuki!" He waves to me as I leave. "You will do great!"

I start heading to the training field. I see Tsunade standing in the middle of the field waiting for me.

"You ready, Mizuki?" She says when she sees me.

"I'm nervous but ready," I nod.

"Good," she smiles. "So you're already ahead because you know basic lighting release, and you know the nervous system and chakra points of a person."

I listen to her carefully.

"First, I am going to see how strong your electricity is," she summons a shadow clone. "So I want you to attack this clone."

"Okay," I nod.

I begin to charge up my chakra and run towards the clone. I strike her straight in the stomach sending electricity into her, causing her to fly back a bit and then poof away.

"Not bad for being self taught," Tsunade walks over to one of the stumps in the ground. "However, you need a lot of work."

She proceeds to strike the stump with her palm, causing the stump to move slightly and pieces of it come off. When she removes her hand you can see a burnt spot of where she shot her electricity through.

"I want you to strike this stump as hard as you can. Focus on the open palm technique and shooting electricity through your palm," she steps aside. "We will concentrate on pure power today. Once you gain control of that, we will concentrate on aiming on the body and precise points of the body."

"Right," I nod.

I step up to the stump, concentrate my chakra to my hand, and strike the stump with my palm. When I remove my palm, you can see the burn I left behind. However, it is concentrating on where the tips of my fingers are rather than my palm.

"That's interesting," Tsunade says. "Do it again."

I strike the stump again and the same thing happens. The burn is where my fingers were rather than my palm.

"Hmmm," Tsunade wonders. "Try striking the stump with the fingertips like a jab rather than with your palm."

I strike the stump again. I wince from the force. I check the stump and there is an indent from where I made contact. Upon further inspection, there are cracks along the stump all around it.

"Wow," I look at the stump.

I turn to Tsunade and she has a giant grin.

"So we do have a lot of promise with you," she says. "We just need to channel all that energy! Sakura was right about you. You will be able to master this easily."

"Thank you, Lady Tsunade!" I smile. "I promise I will not let you down! And thank you for accepting me as your student!"

"Thank me afterwards!" She says. "Now back to training!"

"Yes, ma'am!" I begin to strike the stump again.

She and I continue to train until the sun sets. I fall down to my knees completely out of breath and almost out of chakra. I look up at all the stumps and they are basically destroyed.

"You did well today, Mizuki," she pats me on the back. "I will let you go home and rest now."

"Thank you, Lady Tsunade," I take deep breaths.

"I expect to see you here at same time tomorrow," she begins to walk off. "Tomorrow we are going to work on your kicks."

"I shall see you tomorrow," I say still on the ground.

I take a couple more deep breaths before I have the strength to stand up. I slowly make my way back home. It is dark outside by the time I open the door and kick off my sandals.

"Hey, honey!" Gai says.

I grunt as I walk past him.

"Mizuki?" He's perplexed.

I make my way to the bathroom to shower and walk to the room after. I collapse straight onto the bed, exhausted from today's events.

"Hey, Mizuki?" Gai peeks through the door. "You okay?"

"Tsunade kicked my ass," I say with my face in the pillow. "My arms hurt."

I can hear him chuckle as he sits on the bed.

"She really worked you, huh?" He rubs my back.

"And I gotta do it all again tomorrow," I sigh.

"It will be worth it in the end."

"She's gonna kill me…" I stuff my face further in the pillow.

"Look at it this way," he continues to rub my back. "She is preparing you for when I train you!"

I groan as I lay on my side with my back towards him.

"You will be fine, Mizuki," he lays next to me and holds me. "The pain will be worth it in the end."

"It definitely will be," I say.

I close my eyes and drift off to sleep.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

I wake up to a small stream of light shining through the blinds. I stretch out and wince still sore from yesterday's events. I roll over and see Gai is not in the bed. I can smell food coming from the kitchen. I get up, head towards the bathroom, then towards the kitchen. Gai's back is toward me; he's wearing an apron and is humming a tune to himself.

"Good morning!" He turns around and flips a pancake.

"Good morning," I look at the table and see it is already set up with some orange juice, a stack of pancakes, some eggs, and bacon.

"Please sit and help yourself," he places the pancake on the stack and turns to make another one.

"What's with the giant breakfast?" I grab a pancake and place it on my plate.

"I figured you might wake up hungry from the training session yesterday," he flips the pancake in the pan. "And you will need a big meal today for your next session."

"Awe, thank you, Gai."

My stomach growls as I cut a piece of pancake. I drink some orange juice then take a bite.

"This is delicious!" My mouth waters a bit.

Gai sits across from me placing some bacon and eggs on his plate.

"You like?" He takes a sip of his orange juice.

"I do!" I grab some bacon and put syrup on my plate.

"I'm glad you like it," he takes a couple bites. "We gotta make sure you are nice and fed for your big day today."

"I'm not ready," I sigh "My arms still hurt."

"You will be great."

"Thank you, Gai."

We continue eating for a bit.

"So how is Tsunade teaching you?" He asks me.

"Well, yesterday she had me do a lighting release and then strike a couple stumps, sending my chakra into them," I drink some orange juice. "Today she is going to have me do the same thing, however, concentrating on my feet rather than hands."

"Hmmmm….."

"What's up?"

"I am still thinking about training for you."

"I hope it is not intense."

"It will always be intense!" He grins "We must continue our youth! To be youthful is to train and be strong! We must push our bodies to their limits!"

"Gai…"

"Don't worry! My training for you will push just beyond your limits!"

"As long as you are not attaching weights to my legs," I chuckle.

"I was planning that..."

"Gai..."

"Won't be doing it…" he chuckles "But I will teach you the Leaf whirlwind. I feel that will be the best compliment to the pathway derangement."

"You think so?"

"Yes that one or the Hidden Waterfall Hurricane."

"I don't think I have seen that one."

"It is a little rarer, but it'll make a good counter strike for when you get thrown in midair."

"Hmmm."

We continue to eat.

"I'm so full," I lean back in my chair.

"It was delicious," Gai says.

Gai and I devoured the food. There is barely anything left over.

"You must have been hungry," he says to me.

"I was," I smile as I lean back." And your cooking is great."

"Thank you, dear."

He stands up and walks over to me and grabs my plate.

"I got this," I go to grab the plate but he stops me.

"Don't worry, Hun," he kisses me on my head. "My treat today."

He begins clearing the table. He puts his apron back on and washes the dishes. I grab some of the plates that were left on the table, clear them off in the trash and hand them to him.

"Thank you for breakfast," I give him a hug.

"No problem, Mizuki," he returns it.

I glance at the clock and see that it is almost time for me to meet Tsunade.

"Oh! I have to go!" I quickly run to the room and change.

I run back to the kitchen and give Gai a peck on the lips before running to the front door.

"Thank you again for breakfast! I shall see you later hun!" I put sandals on.

"Have a great day Mizuki!" He calls out.

I run out the door, through the village, and towards the training field. I can see Tsunade standing in the middle of the field waiting for me.

"Tsunade!" i run toward her.

"There you are," she says when she sees me.

"I am so sorry," I say to her. "I lost track of time!"

"No need to apologize," she points to the stump. "It is time to train. I want you to do the same thing as yesterday but concentrate on your kicks."

"Yes ma'am."

I begin concentrating my chakra towards my feet and kick the stump. Again there is an indent in the stump and cracks form around it.

"Nice work," Tsunade says. "Continue and I want you to alternate legs. Normally this technique does not require the user to use their legs. However, if you are in a position where you need to kick someone it is best to know how to distribute your chakra."

"Okay," I nod.

I begin to kick the stump again, destroying it. I switch off my legs making sure that I apply equal amount of power. I can feel myself running out of chakra quicker than I did when using my hands.

"I feel myself running out of chakra," I take a couple of deep breaths.

"This means you need more chakra control," she examines the stumps. "You are doing a lot more damage to the stumps today than you did yesterday."

She summons a shadow clone.

"Let's spar. I want to see you in battle," her clone gets in a defensive stance. "This will be the shortcut to learning chakra control and thinking on your feet."

"Alright," I get in a defensive stance, still breathing heavily.

Tsunade's clone runs towards me with an open palm to strike me right in the stomach. I quickly flip backward to dodge her attack. Right when she misses, she jumps up and punches straight to the ground causing the ground to split. I jump on the split rocks trying to dodge. She comes up towards me and lands a punch. I go flying back.

"Fuck," I land on the ground some feet away.

"Stop dodging, Mizuki," Tsunade jumps up again with an open palm. "I want to see what you are made of."

I jump over her, dodging her hand, and kick her straight to the ground. I land behind her and charge up my chakra in my hand. I see her standing up looking for me and I run towards her to strike her, but she senses me and dodges with ease.

"Now we're talking," she smiles. "You are going to have to try harder than that."

I run towards her again, jump off to her right, dig my foot in the ground and kick myself toward her. I try to strike her when she punches the ground again, causing a giant rock to form, stopping me in my tracks. I sense her behind me and I quickly jump to my left, barely dodging her punch. I dig my foot in the ground and propel myself back towards her, I keep my chakra charged in my hand, and jab her straight in the side sending her flying and disappearing in a puff of smoke.

"Nice work, Mizuki," Tsunade she walks toward me.

"Thank you, Lady Tsunade," I take a deep breath.

"It's interesting that you fight more defensively rather than offensively," she stops in front of me. "You have skills. You just need more confidence in your skill."

"Gai said he wants to train me in taijutsu when you finish training me with the Pathway Derangement"

She looks intrigued and thinks for a moment.

"What are you thinking?" I ask.

"That is a great idea," she smiles. "How is Gai coming along with physical therapy?"

"He's finished with it."

"Perfect. Have him begin training you as soon as possible?"

"Eh?"

"He is on the right track. Taijutsu will be perfect for you. Gai is also one of the best at encouraging his students and bringing them to be the best that they can be," she looks at me with determination. "By training you, the pathway derangement along side taijutsu will be able to give you the confidence you need to master both techniques."

She begins to walk back over to the stumps.

"But for today, we are going to have you continue your chakra control towards your feet," she continues. "I will have Gai take care of your speed and taijutsu technique. You're very skilled at dodging and being quick on your feet, so once we add chakra control and taijutsu, you will be one fine shinobi and will be able to assists our other shinobi on higher ranked missions."

"You really think so?"

"Definitely," she smiles. "Now let's get back to training."

"Yes ma'am!"

We continue training until it is long after dark.

"You did well today," Tsunade examines the stumps. "You are a quick learner. Go talk to Gai. Have him start your training tomorrow. I have a lot of paperwork to finish up before Kakashi and Denizu get back from their honeymoon, so I will call upon you when I can train you again. Keep working on your chakra control."

"Yes Lady Tsunade!" I nod.

With that we both go our separate ways. I make my way through the village and head home. I open the door, excited to tell Gai the news when I see the lights are all off.

"Gai?" I whisper. "You home?"

I take off my sandals, change into my pajamas, and peek into the room. I see Gai knocked out.

'I'll tell him in the morning,' I think as I crawl into bed and fall asleep.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

I wake up slightly as I feel Gai pull me closer to his chest. I turn over and wrap my arms around his waist.

"Good morning, Gai," I say.

"Good morning, Mizuki," he snuggles up to me. "When did you get home?"

"It was long after dark."

"I take it training is going well."

I sigh as I look up at him.

"Tsunade has to do paperwork before Kakashi gets back and she wants you to continue my training and teach me Taijutsu in the meantime," I reply.

"What!" He says excitedly. "Really?"

"Yup… She agrees with your thinking that teaching me Taijutsu will help give me a base to mastering this technique."

"Well what are we waiting for!?" He looks down at me with a giant grin.

"Eh?"  
"We should start training now!" He starts to shuffle a bit.

"Can't I have a couple more minutes snuggled up before we begin?" I curl up closer using my arms and legs to attempt to hold him in place.

"Very well." He settles down a bit and pulls me closer. "I can tell you what I am planning."

"And what's that?"

"We will start off with fifteen laps around the village."

He laughs when I groan and bury my face in his chest.

"Alright, I agree that is a little much for our first training," Gai says. "We can start with five laps instead. Then after the final lap, we will run towards the training field," he rubs my back reassuring me. "Once we hit the training fields, I will see where your skills are and take it from there."

"I can work with that," I say. "I won't be able to keep up with your extreme speed, but I think I would be able to do five laps around the village. Fifteen would have been a little much for the first couple times, but five is definitely doable."

"That is the spirit!" He pulls me into a tight hug. "Soon you will be out running me!"

"I don't think that will happen. You have been training a long time."

"With enough determination you will be just as strong as me. But you have to believe in yourself."

He looks at me with a confident smile.

"Do you believe in yourself like how I believe in you?" He asks.

"I will believe in myself and I will be an amazing ninja!" I give him a confident smile.

"Now let's get training!" He begins to get off the bed. "We have a whole day ahead of us!"

"Aww okay."

I watch him get off the bed. He is facing me as he stretches back. His shirt rising slightly revealing his muscles.

"Are you coming?" He catches me staring at him.

"I will," I smirk. "I'm just enjoying the view from over here."

"Are you now?"

"I am."

He leans on the bed and gives me a passionate kiss. I can feel his hand reaching around me, holding my back and his other hand grazing my legs.

"Now come on we must get to training!" He grabs me bridal style and pulls me out of the bed.

"Gai!" I cling onto his neck. "What are you doing?"

"It is time to get this day started early. We must train while we are still youthful."

He carries me off with me protesting the entire time. He eventually puts me down and we both go and change to get ready for the day ahead.

"Are you ready, Mizuki?" Gai jogs in place outside the house.

"I guess I am," I put my sandals on. "So what's the route?"

"We are starting here and we will make our way to the village gate and follow along the wall."

"Alright."

"We will continue that for five laps then meet back at the village gate after the final lap so we can run towards the training field."

"When do we start?" I stand up and walk out the door with him.

"Now!" He takes off running leaving a trail of dust behind him.

"Eh!" I attempt to run after him. "Gai, wait for me!"

I am running as fast as I can still barely see Gai ahead of me. I make it to the gate and begin making my way around it, following the wall. I am making sure I run fast enough to keep his dust trail in sight.

'This isn't as bad as I thought,' I breathe a little heavier.

After a couple minutes I can see the gate ahead of me.

'At least I made it through my first lap!' I think.

I start up on my second lap around the village. I look a head and I don't see Gai's dust trail anymore.

'How does he run so fast?' I think.

I increase my speed slightly and am halfway through my second lap.

"Mizuki-sensei?" I hear a voice say as I am running.

"Lee?" I see Lee keeping up with me. "What's up?"

"I never thought I would see you doing a morning run around the village."

"Yeah, Gai is training me today and wants me to run around the village a couple times then we are heading to the training field."

"Oh that is awesome!" He says excitedly as he keeps up with me with ease. "That explains why I saw Gai-sensei running!"

"Yeah, so far this is harder than I thought," I am slightly out of breath as I pass the village gate finishing my second lap. "I can barely see Gai anymore."

"You will do great Mizuki-sensei!" He gives me a confident smile. "I remember my first couple training sessions with Gai-sensei. It took me a while to get used to it and now I feel weird if I don't wake up and train."

"Thank you, Lee."

"Lady Tsunade wanted to see me for a mission so I will run with you until we reach the Hokage office to give you some company."

"I appreciate it, Lee."

"So he is going to be teaching you Taijutsu?"

"Yes, Tsunade agreed that it would be best for him to take over my training until Kakashi gets back from his Honeymoon with Denizu."

"Maybe after my mission I would be able to spar with you and Gai-sensei!" He gives me a big smile. "It would be fun friendly spare between Gai-sensei's two students!"

"I would love that!" I give him a smile. "That means I will have to step up my game to attempt to hold my own against you!"

"No worries, Mizuki-sensei! I am sure you will do great!" He gives me a thumbs up.

We continue running for a bit longer and we see the Hokage office in the distance.

"Well, looks like this is my stop," he looks at me. "Good luck, Mizuki-sensei! I can't wait to spar!"

"Be safe on your mission, Lee!"

I wave him goodbye as he runs towards the Hokage Office. I keep making my way around the village. I am finally on my final lap. I hear footsteps coming from behind me.

"Mizuki!" a familiar voice says from behind me.

I turn and see Gai running towards me at full speed. I quickly jump out of the way as he runs past me. He stops in his tracks and comes back towards me and jogs in place.

"Don't stop now, Mizuki!" He encourages.

"You're right!" I continue to run, trying to finish my lap.

"You are doing great, Mizuki!" he runs keeping up with me. "You feel your blood boiling yet?"

"Oh I am feeling it."

I can see the village gate in the distance.

"We are almost there, dear!" He picks up his pace slightly. "It is time for us to put full force in our final lap!"

I run with him at full speed. We make it to the gate and start heading towards the training field.

"Race you!" He says as he speeds up.

"You're on!"

I put my entire being into running. I run as fast as I can yet Gai manages to stay a couple strides ahead of me.

'How the fuck!' I am breathing heavily. I concentrate a bit of chakra into my feet and use that to propel myself forward.

Using my chakra I manage to stay a stride behind him.

"Using your chakra, huh?" he says as he sees me slowly catching up with him.

"I am being resourceful!" I smile.

"That's my girl!" He then smiles at me and increases his speed.

I am baffled by how fast he is going.

"Now I know I can't go easy on you!" He is soon out of sight.

"EH?!" I try to catch up to him but I am too tired and out of breath.

I make my way to the training field and I see him doing pushups in the middle of the field. I run up to him and collapse to my knees trying to catch my breath.

"You did well, Mizuki!" he stands up and walks towards me.

I just look at him catching my breath.

"Here, drink this," he hands me a water bottle.

"Thank you," I take the water bottle and drink the water.

He walks over to one of the trees and brings a bag over to me and sits across from me.

"What's that?" I ask.

"I figured you were going to be tired and out of breath, and since we didn't eat before we left, I decided after my five laps, I could run home, make us some sandwiches, find you running, and we could eat," he hands me a sandwich.

"You managed to do all that while I was running?" I accept the sandwich as I look down contemplating my speed. "Am I that slow?"

"Nonsense!" he tries to reassure me. "You forget that this is part of my regular training so I run a hundred laps almost every morning. For your first five laps around the village in addition to racing me to the training field you did very good. You exceeded my expectations!"

I take a bite of the sandwich.

"Once you rest up a bit we will begin sparing!" He gives me a thumbs up.

"Sounds like a plan, hun," I smile.

He grabs a sandwich and begins munching away. I didn't realize how hungry I was until after that first bite. I devour the sandwich.

"Alright, so what is the plan?" I grab another sandwich.

"We are going to do a quick spar to see where you are since training with Tsunade and since the war," Gai replies.

"You won't go full Gai on me like during the war?" I chuckle a bit.

"Of course not," he chuckles. "I just want to see where you are at."

He and I finish eating, we clean up, and he stands up.

"Alright, Mizuki!" he gets in a defensive stance. "It is time to start! No holding back! I want you to show me everything you know, including what Tsunade has taught you."

"Alright, Gai!" I get up and also get in a defensive stance.

He comes towards me trying to kick me. I quickly do a backflip dodging the attack. I put chakra in my feet and charge towards him trying to kick him.

"Nice form," he easily blocks my kick.

He then grabs my leg and sends me flying. While falling towards the ground, i flip myself over and throw a kunai in his direction.

"Oh, getting dangerous now!" he chuckles as he dodges the kunai.

"You said to give you everything I got," I land on the ground a couple yards from him.

"Please continue," he stands straight up with one hand behind his back and the other in front of him beckoning for me to attack.

I throw a paper bomb kunai in his direction. It lands just in front of him causing smoke to cover me. I charge up my hands and run towards him. I can see him jump to the right. I quickly charge up my chakra, go through the smoke and jab him straight in the side sending an electrical current through him. As a reflex he roundhouse kicks me and sends me flying. I fly back a couple feet, land on the ground and just stay there.

"Damn that hurt," Gai rubs where I jabbed him.

He walks over to me and helps me stand up.

"Good thing you didn't paralyze me," he says.

"That's because I haven't fully mastered it," I wince as I get up. "That was a hard kick."

"Sorry, hun. You caught me off guard," he gives me a peck on the lips. "Which is a very good thing. You have a knack for it!"

"Thank you."

"Now let's get you learning some Taijutsu!"

"Yes!"

We spent the rest of the day learning basic techniques. He has me doing nonstop roundhouse kicks and punches. We do a another couple of laps through the training field. It is getting dark and Gai has me doing pushups.

"Come on, Mizuki!" He jogs next to me. "We could do another 50 pushups."

"I can't do another one," I try to do one more push up and I collapse straight to the ground. "I did 50 already… I can't do another. I can't feel my arms."

I try to stand up but I fall straight back to the ground.

"Are you okay!" Gai grabs me

"My legs feel like jello," I look up at him. "Just give me a moment to rest and I will be able to walk."

"Nonsense!" He then grabs me and puts me on his back. "I will carry you home so you can rest in a bed not on the ground."

"Aww, Gai," I wrap my arms around his neck and lay my head on the back of his neck.

"You did great today." He readjusts me. "You just rest while I get you home."

I am so tired. I close my eyes and I can feel him grab the bag and start heading home. Slowly I drift off into sleep.


	18. Chapter 18

**Sorry for the delay! I had a very long writers block but i am back!**

**Chapter 18**

It is early January and I am heading home from finishing my last lap around the village. I look up and watch the snow fall.

'Its cold.' I shiver a bit as I unlock the door to the apartment.

"I can't believe Gai got me used to taking daily laps around the village."

I hop into the shower. Getting some warmth from the water.

"MIZUKI!" I hear Gai yell as he throws the front door open.

"What?" I finish my shower and I walk out with just a towel on.

I shiver a bit realizing the front door is still open sending a breeze through the place. "Close the door it is cold!" I yell out.

I can hear Gai close the front door as I walk towards the bedroom.

"Mizuki!" He runs over to the room.

"What's up?"

"You must get ready!" He is slightly out of breath. "We must leave immediately!"

He walks through the room and begins packing a bag.

"Pack for at least a four day trip!" He places kunais in the bag.

"What why?" I put my clothes on. "Where are we going?"

"Kakashi is sending us on a mission!" He gives me a giant smile. "It is my first mission since the war! And this will be your first official mission since you have joined the leaf!"

"EH?!"

"I asked Kakashi to let you accompany me on this mission since you are a medical nin and we will need a skilled medical-nin for this mission." He grabs his vest and puts it on. "Plus I wanted to be there with you during your first mission."

"That is sweet but what the fuck?!" I begin packing my bag. "So where are we going?"

"I will tell you on the way!" He grabs his bag and walks towards the door. "You coming hun?"

"I'm coming!" I finish packing my bag and we head out the door.

We are a couple miles from the village running at full speed avoiding the snow falling from the trees.

"So are you going to tell me what our mission is?" I run keeping up with Gai. "Or even what rank it is?"

"It is a B-rank that might become an A-rank mission." He tells me. "We are being sent to guard Yuki and his daughter Yuka Masuno."

"Who are they?"

"He is the new head of the household of the Masuno estate. His father was murdered a couple days ago. Yuki request protection for his travels from his estate to where the funeral will be located."

"But if he is the head of the estate then why not use his own men?"

"He doesn't trust them." He gives me a grim look. "He wants additional protection from actual ninja."

"Then why bring me and not another more qualified ninja? This sounds like someone who probably has more combat experience."

"Yuka Masuno requested a medical nin was brought." He continues to run. "She has the fear that if her father were attacked then an experienced medical nin would be able to save him."

"Oh…"

"Yuki believes that his men are the reason his father was killed."

"He thinks they killed them?"

"Not exactly." He thinks about it. "I'm not exactly sure on the information. Kakashi said Masuno will explain more when we get there."

"I see…"

"Plus Kakashi wants this to stay a two man mission. It shouldn't be that difficult for us, especially since you mastered the body pathway and are excelling in taijutsu."

"Thank you for the confidence boost but it is still making me nervous."

"Nothing to be nervous about dear." He gives me a giant grin. "You will do great."

We make our way to this giant estate. We walk through the gates and I can see that it is very quiet. People are walking around, staring at us, and whispering to each other all wearing black.

"They are still in mourning." I say quietly. "They also don't seem trusting of us."

"I heard it is their tradition to mourn until the official ceremony of the new head of the household takes over."

"Really?"

"Yes." Gai nods. "And Yuki Masuno did not want to take on the role until we have arrived to ensure his protection."

We continue to walk through the village towards the Masuno Estate.

"But what about after we leave?"

"We will worry about that when the time comes." Gai gives me his usual grin.

"If you say so."

We walk through these giant gates in the back of the village, heading towards one of the biggest estates.

"Ah you two must be the ninja of the Leaf." A man says as he walks towards us. "My name is Asato Shoyo. I am Master Masuno's advisor."

"Hello Shoyo." Gai says as we walk up. "I am Gai Might and this is Mizuki Kyoto."

I give him a slight bow.

"Please call me Asato." He says with a smile. "Now if you will follow me this way."

He leads us into the estate. Everyone is scurrying around us.

"Please excuse the mess." Asato says as we enter a hall. "We are doing last minute preparations for the ceremony."

"When will the ceremony take place?" I ask

"We were hoping for tonight but Master Masuno is still weary of the event."

"Can you inform us of what happened?" Gai asks

"I will let him explain it to you."

"I understand." Gai says

We continue to follow Asato through another series of hallways eventually making our way to a huge corridor.

"Shoyo!" A man yells as he meets up with us.

"Miko." Asato glares at him while side eyeing us. "How can I help you?"

"We are having trouble with our pri-" he makes eye contact with us, acknowledging us and freezes. "Our guest."

"I will discuss this with you later." Asato puts a hand on Miko's shoulder and leads him away from us. "As you can see I have the leaf ninja here for Master Masato. You know we can't keep him waiting. I will deal with our guest later."

I see Gai is uneasy and I give him a worried look.

"My apologies, Shoyo." Miko bows and runs off.

"Sorry about that." Asato turns towards us and continues to lead us to Master Masuno. "He is so overprotective of all of our guests. Especially since our last Master passed."

We make it to Masuno's hall. Asato knocks on the door.

"Enter." A voice says from behind the doors.

Gai and I follow Asato into the room.

"Hello Master Masuno." Asato bows. "These are the two Ninja from the Leaf."

"Hello Master Masuno. My name is Gai Might." He bows

"And I'm Mizuki Kyoto." I give a slight bow.

"Hello Mizuki and Gai." Masuno says. "I hope Asato has been helpful so far."

"Yes he has, thank you." Gai says. "Now if you may inform us of what you will need."

"Of course." Masuno waves his hand. "Asato you may leave."

"But Master-"

"I said leave."

"Very well." Asato gives a small bow.

I watch him side eye Gai and I as he leaves the room.

"I apologize for that." Masuno says to us. "I prefer as little people know about the plan as possible even if they are my trusted advisor."

"We understand." I say.

"As you may know my father was killed about one week ago. I believe it was by the hand of his own men. That is why I have asked the leaf to give me extra protection. I do not want my life to have the same fate. I would like you two to not only protect me during the ceremony, but to also find out who was in charge of my father's death."

"Do you have any ideas of who it could have been?" I ask

"I have no idea." He sighs. "My father was a very trusting man. He was never without one of his guards but would go around the village helping and being with the people."

"What makes you think it was one of your own men?" Gai asks.

"We caught the one who killed him." He sighs "however when we tried to question him, he took his own life. This specific guard, while he may be smart, was not smart enough to come up with this plan. He was merely a puppet and I want to find who is holding the strings."

"We will help you anyway we can." Gai says. "We will find the leader."

"Thank you." He gives a small smile. "I currently have my wife and my newborn son far away in a hidden location. Only I know of their location. I am worried that whoever it is, is trying to wipe out all the males in my family to take over the estate."

"Just the males?" I ask

"Correct." He nods, "It is a long tradition that the first born male becomes the next master of the estate. I am hoping to eventually change this for the generation after my son. That it will be the first born rather than the first son. However that law will only apply to his children and the ones afterwards."

"So you are worried this person is going to wipe out your heirs?" Gai asks.

"Yes." he nods. "I am an only child. If they kill me and my son then the next one in line would be my daughter Yuka. If they kill all of us then they will become the next masters of the estate and their family would carry on."

There is a small knock on the door.

"I wonder who this could be." Masuno says loudly. "Enter."

The door opens and a young girl, about 12, peeks through the opening.

"Ah Yuka." Masuno says with a big smile. "Please come here sweetheart."

Yuka walks over to her father and looks over curiously at us.

"Are these the ninja?" She asks.

She has a blank look to her eyes. Her eyes are a light amber and seem to look through your soul. She gives me a smirk.

"Yes, this is Mizuki and Gai of the Hidden leaf." He puts his hand around her shoulder. "They are here to make sure nothing happens to us."

"Hello." She gives a slight bow, her eyes never leaving mine. "I hope you will make sure my father stays alive."

"No worries." I say with a smile. "We will keep your father safe."

"Now I know you two must be tired. We can discuss more of this later." Masuno clears his throat. "I am afraid because of the upcoming ceremony we only have one room left in the mansion."

"That's no problem." Gai puts his arm around me and gives Masuno a thumbs up. "We are not picky."

I give a sweat drop.

"Very well." Masuno gives a slight chuckle. "Yuka may you please take them to their room. I have to finish up some last minute plans with Asato."

"Yes father." She walks past us barely looking at us. "You two may follow me."

"I will be seeing you two at dinner. Feel free to roam around the grounds and get acquainted with the area after she shows you to your room." Yuki calls out.

"Thank you sir." We both bow and follow Yuka.

As we were walking down the hall we passed Asato who was going towards Masuno's office. I noticed him stare at Yuka. She continues walking, not even acknowledging his presence. He then looks up at me and gives a small nod and we continue on our way.

'I wonder what that was about.' I think as I look behind me at Asato.

Yuka stops in front of a door and opens it.

"This is where you two will be staying." She walks into the room and leans on the wall.

"This is lovely thank you." Gai places his bag near the bed as he strolls around the room.

"Let one of the servants know if you need anything." She says to us.

"Uh thank you, Yu-" I turn and she is gone.

I peek out the room and see she is nowhere to be found.

'What the fuck?!' I think as I close the door to the room. 'What a strange girl.'


End file.
